John Wolseley was born in Great Britain in 1938. He studied at the Byam Shaw and St. Martin’s School of Art in London, which is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading arts and design institutions. In 1959 he lived in Paris and worked at Atelier 17 with S.W. Hayter, who was a highly influential printmaker of the twentieth century. After working at the Birgit Skiolds print workshop in London in 1962, he later moved to the west of England and founded Nettlecombe Studios, a collective for artists and farmers based at his ancestral home. Following six months in the Spanish Pyrenees and an expedition up the Skrang River, Borneo in the years 1974-75, John Wolseley settled in Australia in 1976. His new home provided him with a distinctive environment removed from the European landscape tradition, shifting his perspective and altering his painting practice when it comes to the intense observation of nature. Since his arrival, Wolseley has made several journeys throughout Australia, beginning in 1980 with his extensive exploration of central Australia, followed in 1984 by a trip to the country’s north-west. In 1991, he was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship which enabled him to spend eight months in the Simpson Desert charting the sand dunes.
Through various later projects, Wolseley continued to assume the role of an explorer in seeking new locations and embarking upon the study of landscapes and threatened ecosystems. In 1994-95 he spent four months in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego charting Gondwana, the name given to the ancient continent that included most of the landmasses in today’s Southern Hemisphere. In 1999 he engaged in extensive travel and painting in northern Australia and Indonesia. Furthermore, in 2002 he participated in a four month project in the Royal National Park in New South Wales. By repeatedly immersing himself in new locations, Wolseley finds new ways of relating to the land, which translates into interesting artistic practices. Wolseley documents his explorations through drawings of the intimate processes and natural histories of the sites he visits. His distinctive methods include rubbing paper against burnt tree branches and releasing papers into the wind, which he collects several months later to review the way in which nature has inscribed the works. Mallee (northwest of Melbourne) has been a site of interest for Wolseley in the ten years from 2003 and in 2011 he published a book Lines for Birds, in collaboration with the poet Barry Hill, after they had travelled together across rural Victoria, South East Asia, Japan and France. Most recently, Wolseley is a participating artist in the 18th Biennale of Sydney, 2012.
Since his work was first exhibited at the London Group in 1959, followed by the Royal Academy in 1960, Wolseley’s work has appeared in a long list of solo and group exhibitions. Selected examples of solo exhibitions include Patagonia to Tasmania: Origin Movement Species Tracing the Southern Continents, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia (1996), Bird on a Wire, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2007) and Carboniferous, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2011). His series Tracing the Wallace Line was exhibited at Bendigo Art Gallery in 2001 in an installation that transformed the exhibition space into a model of the Earth’s dynamic system around the Wallace Line. Turning to group exhibitions, Wolseley’s work appeared in The Ecologies Project, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia (2008), Tract: James Geurts, Dominic Redfern, Philip Samartzis, John Wolseley, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia (2010) and overseas in Out of Australia: Prints and Drawings from Sidney Nolan to Rover Thomas, British Museum, London, England (2011).
John Wolseley has received multiple honours in the Trustees of Art Gallery of NSW Watercolour Prize (in 2004, 1996, 1988, 1985 and 1982), as well as several awards, such as the Visual Arts Board Emeritus Award, Australia Council (2005), Kedumba Art Award (1992) and the Mobil Print Award, Australian Print Workshop (1992), of which he was the inaugural recipient. Additionally, in 2005, Wolseley received an Honorary degree from Macquarie University, Sydney, in the course of Doctor of Science, reflecting his knowledge of natural history, botany and ornithology.
His work is represented in many prominent Australian and British collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Arts Council of Great Britain, Contemporary Arts Society, London, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston and Hereford Museum and Art Gallery, Hereford.
- Writers:
-
ecwubben
- Date written:
- 1999
- Last updated:
- 2012
