{John Wolseley

Contemporary Landscape Artist

Don’t say a word.

Simply take out your VAPD and pen.

Write down all that you observe…

What have we been looking at?

What frame/s does this fit under? What aspect/s of the Conceptual Framework does this fit into?

What have you observed?

What did you discover about John Wolseley?

Born: 1938

Settled in AUS: 1976

1979 – 2006 Travelled extensively around Australia, and some foreign

countries, but mostly around desert regions and the outback.

Biography

Wild Cries Wild Wings of Wetland and Swamp: Propositions of an Uncertain Future by John Wolseley (2011). Oil painting with waterproof varnish on ply wood.

John Wolseley could pass for a 19th Century gentleman explorer.

He is an artist, a naturalist and a geographer, rolled into one.

His work is strikingly contemporary, often with inclusions of details mappings and botanical, scientific illustrations of birds, lizards etc.

Wolseley documents what is left rather than documenting what he discovers.

The old gentleman naturalists were looking forward and discovering new things, whereas I am looking back, I am deconstructing that. I’m often the last to see something, rather than the first. ~ John Wolseley

The last journey of the Regent Honeyeater by John Wolseley (2004).

His work also is known to include snippets of poetry, scientific diagrams and musings.

His maps are not readable in the conventional sense: they whirl about through time and space…

He is a Renaissance man without the commitment to ‘perspective’. His perspective lives in his historical application of different aspects of thought and feeling.

The Memory Of Fire by John Wolseley (2003).

Why do you think the artist chose to use the technique of frottage in the creation of this artwork?

Frottage: rubbing charcoal, pencil etc. over a textured surface to impress it’s design upon the markings on the paper.

Most people have a very goal-orientated job, but what I tend to do is go to a place and just sit there and day dream, really, and slowly, because you are so quiet and still, you get to learn a lot about a place. I start with a lot of exploratory drawings which end up in the paintings as sort of collages, then I build up a picture of the place.

~ John Wolseley