John Walter

John Walter

I am a painter. I am the subject and sometimes the form of my own work. I collate my findings into paintings, which act as the platform for my maximal and arresting performative installations. I also make over-sized artist’s books that are a form of self-portrait in which the protagonist is concealed and then revealed in perpetuity.

I draw references from both high and low culture filtering them and synthesizing them into my very consistent aesthetic. Through my painting and object making I force the characters of my subconscious to play together; design great Ettore Sottsass may find himself engaged in a dialogue with Mr. Peanut and my mother. I transpose the structure of my imagination into the real world using elements that everyone can understand.

I am a virtuosic draftsman but I reject classical technique, subverting it through the use of projectors and distorting surfaces. I am also a serial collaborator, working with artists whom I often have diametrically opposed practices and processes. This exchange allows me to clarify my own position and simultaneously clarify the position of the other. I am the über appropriationist but also a maestro of artists. The syntax of my paintings acts as the research for my skill in nurturing connections between artists.

My work is a channeling of social anthropology and psychoanalysis, investigating in either direction the macrocosm of the world outside and the microcosm of my internal world. my work is a dissection of the self, revealing both narcissist and Everyman. This dialectical investigation into my place in the world invites the audience into my constantly revised hermetic lexicon. Like tarot cards I seek to find common ground with others through a shared reference. My work is a research into language and the dissemination of cants. I am a gregarious loner.

You are invited aboard Space Station Zsa Zsa for a mind-rinsing flight across the Atlantic over the sea of collage, absurdism and lurid colour that could only be John Walter’s vision.

Exhibitions

2011
its all over yer face, (solo) Peabody Yard Studios, London
Rummage Sale, Barbican Gallery, London
Smokefall, Tintype Gallery, London
The Shape of Things (curated by Silia Ka Tung), Ferrate Gallery, Israel
Apocalypstick, The Nunnery, London

2010
John Walter, (solo) Maiden, London
Pinacoteca – Pina Colada, (solo) Galerie ArsProToto, Erlangen, Germany
Bar Zsa Zsa, (solo) Paradise Lost Presents, London
BAT Pack, Mile End Pavilion, London
The Art of Function, Oriel Sycharth Gallery, Wrexham
Chopsticks Optional, (with Corinne Felgate), The Nunnery, London
John Walter, (solo) Canary Wharf, Windows for Art Programme

2009
Pigs Don’t Sweat, (solo) Galerie ArsProToto, Erlangen, Germany
A Night of Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, The Dolphin, London
P1, Bow Arts Open, London
Oxford Contemporary, OVADA, Oxford
She’s My Beard, (with Elke Zauner), The Hex at Balfron Tower, London

2008
Flat Examination (with The Hex), V22 Wharf Road Project, London
Hotdog/Jumping Frog/Albuquerque, (with Maria Zahle), Tisvildje, Denmark
Germany-1, England-1, (with Elke Zauner), Temple University, Rome
Bewegte Kunst 2008, Galerie ArsProToto, Erlangen, Germany
Spazi Aperti 6, Romanian Academy, Rome
Tutti Frutti, The British School at Rome
The Director’s Apartment, The British School at Rome
John Walter and Mark Epstein, Gallery North, Newcastle

2007
Maximum Noise, (solo) Galleria Marabini, Bologna
Party at the American Academy, The British School at Rome
Spazi Aperti 5, Romanian Academy, Rome
Transit_2, The British School at Rome

2006
In The Garden of Sexual Diseases, (solo) Toni Heath Gallery, London
Transit_1, The British School at Rome
Queer Eye, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Scope New York with Jack the Pelican Presents, Brooklyn, New York
London Art Fair with Toni Heath Gallery, London
Art On Paper at the Royal College of Art with Toni Heath Gallery, London

2005
Big Books, (solo) Bookartbookshop, London
Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Space and Touring
The Risky Business of Import/Export or How we moved from East London to New York, The Tank, New York
Delayed Gratification, (with Mark Epstein) Space-twotentwo, London

2004
Big and Little Epics, (solo) Kings Cross Business Centre, London
The Relaxed Audience or Why We Are So Wise, Jeffrey Charles Gallery, London
Zoo Art Fair, London with Jeffrey Charles Gallery, London
Wonka Wigs, (with Mark Epstein) 72 Welbeck Street, London

2003
Category-B, The Empire, London
Postgraduate Show, Slade School of Fine Art, London

2002
Four Colleges Show, ATKearney London Headquarters, London
MA Interim Show, Slade School of Fine Art, London, London
Red Mansion Spero Prize, London Institute Gallery, London
Painting in the Park, Woburn Square, London
Hang the Curator, Faroe Road Studios, London

2001
Seekers who are Lovers, (solo) St. John’s College, Oxford
Ruskin School Degree Show, Ruskin School of Drawing And Fine Art, Oxford

2000
John Walter and Tom Woolner, Ruskin School of Drawing And Fine Art, Oxford

Performances
2011 Shitney Cuntstone, Motel to Nowhere, London
2010 Shitney Cuntstone, Cabaret Melancholique, London

Curatorial
2011 Two Peacocks, (curator) Gallery North, Newcastle