About the exhibition
John Waller
‘In the tradition of New York Abstract
Expressionist art, Waller explores the infinite
gestural and expressive possibilities of his chosen
medium. Layer upon layer his works evolve and
transform, almost organically in response to the
primal qualities of paint and process.’
Dr Alana O’Brien, La Trobe University Art Museum, 2006
John Waller's paintings are derived from the landscape he has an emotional empathy with - that of his childhood home - the bleached expanse between the Murray River and the desert in south-western New South Wales. The artist, who as a child discovered there Aboriginal remains of great antiquity, sees beyond the scene of his own youth in his appreciation of this landscape. Framed by the bustling modern town of Mildura in the south, and the ancient archeological site of Lake Mungo to the north, this plain has witnessed the cycle of human toil for fifty thousand years. Hence, packed with emptiness, the wheat and ochre-coloured world of Waller's painting often contains the blurry spectral form of passing humanity in mid-field.
John Waller’s works, whether etching, painting or other mixed media, are immediately concerned with the craft of the given medium.
Brush and trowelling marks build the evocative surface of the paintings. The textural qualities in his etchings are built from applying the bitumen resist to the plates with immediate and gestural brushmarks then repeatedly etching the multiple plates to build the landscape out of the human form.
A landscape subject is always insistently there in his geometric forms, shapes that speak directly of the experience of rural Australia, the way that the land is criss-crossed by razor-straight roads and fences of immense length so that, from a raised viewpoint, it resembles an arrangement of huge irregular rectangles.
Indeed, thinking beyond the adroitly worked paint and the subtle textures and bold lines of his etchings, we might start to percieve that some of Waller's oblongs appear filled with dried grass, some with traces of struggling crops, some with the sun-pounded red earth.
Born 1951 Melbourne, 1956 moved to Mildura, Vic.
Studies:
RMIT School of Fine Art, Dept. of Sculpture 1970-72, Associate Diploma of Fine Art (Sculpture) 1972.
State College of Vic. at Hawthorn, Dip. Ed. 1975
Exhibitions
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011
Mossgreen Gallery, Melbourne, New Works
2009
Mossgreen Gallery, Melbourne, ‘The Mallee’
2007
Peking University
’New Works’ 2007 Chrysalis Gallery
, Melbourne, 2006
Lyttleton Gallery, Melbourne, annually 1991-2006
La Trobe University Art Museum, Melbourne, ‘Junction 2006: Recent Works by John Waller, Artist in Residence’
2005
La Trobe University Art Museum, Melbourne, ‘Recent Works’
2004
La Trobe University Art Museum, Melbourne, ‘Artist in Residence’
2003
Shepparton Art Gallery, ‘Home Country: The art of John Waller – Artist in Residence
2002
Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre, Melbourne, ‘Survey: John Waller 1990-2002
Mildura Arts Centre, Mildura, Melbourne
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2009
Mossgreen Gallery, Melbourne, ‘Here/Now’
2006
Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre, Melbourne, ‘Common Ground’
2005
Bendigo Art Gallery, ‘My Country’
2004
La Trobe University Art Collection, ‘Site + Vision’
2003
Mildura Arts Centre, ‘From the Fringe to the Centre’
Bundoora Homsetead Federation Centre for the Arts, Melbourne, ‘North: Artists from the other side of the Yarra’
2002
La Trobe University Art Museum, ‘Abstract Interpretations of the Australian Landscape’
Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne, ‘Saloon 2002 Abstract Painting: curated by Stephen Wickham’
