John R Walker The Shed

John R Walker: The Shed

John R Walker: The Shed

Utopia Art Sydney 9th October —13th November, 2010

© Utopia Art Sydney

John R Walker: The Shed

John R Walker has confirmed his place in the ranks of Australia’s great landscape painters. His portraits of the Braidwood district have come to define the landscape of the region.

It is Walker’s keen vision and poetic sensibility that have transformed this scratchy bush and overgrazed paddocks into some of the most powerfully evocative landscape paintings of the past decade.

Thus, it will be a surprise to many to find Walker immersed in his neighbour’s old shed.

This exhibition lavishes attention on the untouched contents and weatherworn exterior of a classic Australian out-building. Gone are the open plains and broad views, replaced by a particular focus on, in and around this little shelter. Actually, as with all Walker’s work, ‘the shed’ is a reduction of several sheds, which only adds to the essential nature of these new works.

In Walker’s hands, the interior, with tables full of bric-a-brac and old machinery, shrouded by years of inattention, are transformed into dark palace interiors. Old grinders atop ancient benches become sculptures and stacked building leftovers become opulent loot. In the largest interior, an olive green space appears lit by candlelight, but it is actually the light filtering through cracks between hand-hewn boards. The vast space belies its humble reality. Junk becomes treasure in Walker’s eye and hand.

The Shed

On the outside, a door, some steps, a loading dock form iconic structures. Functional devices raised to the status of regal structures, rough hewn and substantial, they epitomise the Australian bush architecture. Hand made, by hard labour, to last. Photographs of the actual building attest to their structure but it is Walker’s paintings that capture their nature and the history they contain. In the process, a shed becomes ‘The Shed’, a most familiar structure bearing witness to part of our history and outliving those who made it.

Of course, as ever, Walker finds interest in the detail, and the hinges, bindings and bolts that secure these structures have been singled out for special attention. These hand wrought items have an integral beauty from their formation at the blacksmith’s anvil, the patination of use and transformation by the elements. Set against the almost abstract repetition of ubiquitous corrugated iron, the sculptural integrity of their function and service is honestly acknowledged.

In fact the revelation of the shed, in all its aspects, is an experience all of us familiar with the bush immediately relate to. Many will empathise with sheds they have entered and known. Others may remember a private place, a timeless zone, a childhood memory, when they have confronted what seemed like a fortress only to find an enchanted world within. So in oil and gouache, Walker takes us on a journey through these structures, and reminds us, beautifully, of our short time in this place.

CHRISTOPHER HODGES, 2010

The Enigma of Arrival, 2010 archival oil on polyester, 181 x 476cm

Shelf, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Old Shed, 2010 archival oil on polyester, 173 x 182cm

Anvil & Vice, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Grinder & Vice, 2010 archival oil on polyester, 169 x 185cm

Shed Interior, 2010 archival oil on polyester, 177 x 475cm

Dock, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Loading Dock, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Ramp, 2010 archival oil on polyester, 181.5 x 254cm

Pile 2, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Shed Interior, 2010 gouache on paper, 75 x 110cm

Big Hinge, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Lock, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Little Hinge, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Hinge, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Teamster Shed Door, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

Drawbar, 2010 gouache on paper, 55 x 75cm

The loading ramp

John R Walker: The Shed

Utopia Art Sydney 9th October —13th November, 2010

Utopia Art Sydney 2 Danks Street Waterloo NSW 2017 Telephone: + 61 2 9699 2900 Facsimile: + 61 2 9699 2988 E-mail: utopiaartsydney@ozemail.com.au www.utopiaartsydney.com.au © Utopia Art Sydney

Photography by Peter Jones

Utopia Art Sydney 2 Danks Street Waterloo NSW 2017 Telephone: + 61 2 9699 2900 Facsimile: + 61 2 9699 2988 E-mail: utopiaartsydney@ozemail.com.au www.utopiaartsydney.com.au