John Wolseley, Entangled layers of the spectral rivers of the Wimmera plains – leaf canopy, soil crust, fungal web, invertebrate fauna, water and rock, 2022, watercolour, graphite, etching and charcoal on paper, 65 x 85 cm each; 205 x 265 cm overall. On display in John Wolseley’s exhibition Regenesis – Slow Water – Deep Earth at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2023.
John Wolseley, Entangled layers of the spectral rivers of the Wimmera Plains – Kurakibiyal to Banyena via Grays Bridge, 2023, watercolour, graphite, etching and charcoal on paper, 65 x 85 cm each; 205 x 265 cm overall. On display in John Wolseley’s exhibition Regenesis – Slow Water – Deep Earth at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2023.
John Wolseley, Termitaria: Indwelling I, 2020-21, woodcut, linocut, etching, graphite frottage, and watercolour on cotton, Mini washi and Gampi paper, 204.5 x 180.5 cm; 219 x 195 cm (framed). On display in John Wolseley’s exhibition Regenesis – Slow Water – Deep Earth at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2023.
John Wolseley, What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wilderness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet, Long live the weeds, and the wilderness yet – G M Hopkins, 2019-20, oil on board, 93 x 123.5 cm. On display in John Wolseley’s exhibition Regenesis – Slow Water – Deep Earth at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2023.
Read a full transcript of the interview here.
For over 60 years John Wolseley has been visiting, capturing and sharing his experience of landscapes. But what does it mean to create and innovate over six decades? And what can Wolseley teach us about the life-stages of an artist?
Art Guide Australia’s newest podcast series The Long Run considers this question with artists who have had careers spanning 60 years, each reflecting on their art and lives.
In this third episode Wolseley, one of Australia’s most well-known landscape painters and printmakers, speaks to us from his home in regional Victoria. Moving to Australia from England in 1976, he’s known for immersing himself in an environment before painting it, capturing landscapes ranging from the mountains in Tasmania, to wetlands and rivers, to the floodplains of Arnhem land. Known as a great storyteller, Wolseley captures worlds that invite engagement with nature and the environment.
In this episode Wolseley talks about how he came of age when England was coming out of World War II, and his experience of growing up on a farm and later attending boarding school. The artist also talks about studying under prestigious artists, what it takes for a landscape to capture his attention, and how he balances an environmental awareness in his work without being didactic. And finally, Wolseley tells us what having a 60-year practice feels like, and whether he’s optimistic about the future.
If you like this conversation, you can listen to the first episode where avant-garde painter Gareth Sansom talks about chance in making art, and his feelings on mortality and time; and in episode two hear Wendy Stavrianos discuss her experience of being a female landscape painter.
This series is kindly sponsored by Leonard Joel Auctioneers and Valuers, based in Melbourne and Sydney.
Produced and presented by Tiarney Miekus, music and engineering by Mino Peric.
John Wolseley is represented Roslyn Oxley9, Sydney and Australian Galleries, Melbourne.
Still Life
Buxton Contemporary
Until 6 November
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