John R. Walker: Trees
At a certain point in an artist's life there is an exhibition which appears fresh and new but simultaneously is reminiscent of key moments in a long career. Tree Song is such a show.
Some of my earliest memories of John's work are the black and white charcoal drawings that were exhibited at Mori Gallery in 1982. This exhibition launched John into the public consciousness with sales to major institutions and collections and critical attention.
These dramatic works were uncompromising and bold. They bore the hallmark of an artist working prolifically and with the passion of youth. Deep black charcoal on pure white paper caused a stir.
Walker in those days was literally the artist in the garret, doing little else but these drawings. The chiaroscuro in these works owes much to the 'burning of the midnight oil'. His studio was filled with stacks of drawings, a great pile of rejects, the floor acrush with charcoal. Francis Bacon would have definitely approved! Indeed Walker found inspiration in that room.
And it is these very drawings that come to mind when looking at his latest exhibition.
In the early 2000s, Walker enjoyed a residency, two in fact, at Bundanon. Here he painted a series of works that have become well known. One is in the National Gallery of Australia collection, ARTBANK has another placed in a key Governmental location and several have
featured in surveys of his work at the S H Ervin, the Drill Hall and Orange Regional Galleries. This was an intense formative period as John moved from figuration to landscape, painting in the shadow of Arthur Boyd's mountain. He found inspiration in Boyd's bush, and a key work focussed on an old hollowed out tree, majestic despite its demise. It was the start of an interest in the tree as an iconic form.
Walker has continued to explore and paint the land, looking deeply at the history, geography, geology and human presence of place, and solitary trees have become marker, sentinel, symbol and metaphor.
Thus, In late 2023 when John made a series of works on paper, of a single tree as the subject, it signalled the start of a body of work that would lead to this new exhibition. These works were drawn with a thin brush and black paint, a web of black marks on white paper, that simply resonated.
In the next year or so these trees spread to larger and larger canvases,
In some, broken limbs lie scattered about the base of a once grand tree on a barren landscape. In others, their spare trunks reach to the sky in ecstasy, Cicada song simply vibrates.
In the grand painting Stump, the iconic remnant of a stoic gate post, that was once a living tree, has its ghost floating, barely discernible, in the clear white light.
In the end, all that matters is all that remains.
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At a certain point in an artist's life there is an exhibition which appears fresh and new but simultaneously is reminiscent of key moments in a long career. Tree Song is such a show.
Some of my earliest memories of John's work are the black and white charcoal drawings that were exhibited at Mori Gallery in 1982. This exhibition launched John into the public consciousness with sales to major institutions and collections and critical attention.
These dramatic works were uncompromising and bold. They bore the hallmark of an artist working prolifically and with the passion of youth. Deep black charcoal on pure white paper caused a stir.
Walker in those days was literally the artist in the garret, doing little else but these drawings. The chiaroscuro in these works owes much to the 'burning of the midnight oil'. His studio was filled with stacks of drawings, a great pile of rejects, the floor acrush with charcoal. Francis Bacon would have definitely approved! Indeed Walker found inspiration in that room.
And it is these very drawings that come to mind when looking at his latest exhibition.
In the early 2000s, Walker enjoyed a residency, two in fact, at Bundanon. Here he painted a series of works that have become well known. One is in the National Gallery of Australia collection, ARTBANK has another placed in a key Governmental location and several have
featured in surveys of his work at the S H Ervin, the Drill Hall and Orange Regional Galleries. This was an intense formative period as John moved from figuration to landscape, painting in the shadow of Arthur Boyd's mountain. He found inspiration in Boyd's bush, and a key work focussed on an old hollowed out tree, majestic despite its demise. It was the start of an interest in the tree as an iconic form.
Walker has continued to explore and paint the land, looking deeply at the history, geography, geology and human presence of place, and solitary trees have become marker, sentinel, symbol and metaphor.
Thus, In late 2023 when John made a series of works on paper, of a single tree as the subject, it signalled the start of a body of work that would lead to this new exhibition. These works were drawn with a thin brush and black paint, a web of black marks on white paper, that simply resonated.
In the next year or so these trees spread to larger and larger canvases,
In some, broken limbs lie scattered about the base of a once grand tree on a barren landscape. In others, their spare trunks reach to the sky in ecstasy, Cicada song simply vibrates.
In the grand painting Stump, the iconic remnant of a stoic gate post, that was once a living tree, has its ghost floating, barely discernible, in the clear white light.
In the end, all that matters is all that remains.
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