John Walter

Compound Events

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Year 2020
Medium Carbon, watercolour, and ink on paper
Dimensions 30 x 38 cm
Nominated by Gillian Fox

About the work

This drawing combines my Memoji with two mutant mangos, a child from a historical Dutch painting and a mask from an older work. This Compound Event has grown out of my recent research into memes, making equivalence between biological systems of self-assembly and pictorial modes of composition.

About the artist:

Born 1978 Dartford, John Walter lives and works in London. Graduated from BFA (Hons) Fine Art at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford (2001); MFA Painting from The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2003); and PhD from The University of Westminster (2017).

Walter works across a diverse range of media that includes drawing, painting, artist’s books, performance, video, VR, installation and curating. He employs epic amounts of humour and hospitality to parallel worlds within which to immerse audiences. He makes complex systems comprised of small parts, which can be (re)arranged into larger wholes. He has referred to this approach as maximalism. Walter is best known for deploying this approach within large-scale projects that have addressed sexual health, HIV, and visual awkwardness. These projects often involve collaborations with scientists. This has informed his current interest in viruses of the mind and using the Paisley Pattern to take a meme’s eye view of cultural transmission.

His works are held in public and private collections including The Arts Council Collection and The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

Selected exhibitions include Queer Algorithms, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland (2020); Co-Factors, Suttie Arts Space, Aberdeen (2020); Brexit Gothic, DKUK, London (2019); Crep Suzette – A Shoe Show with Bert McLean, LUVA, London (2019); The Fourth Wall, Look Again Festival, Aberdeen (2019); Booze Guitar, Matt’s Gallery, London (2018); CAPSID, Southwark Park Galleries, London and HOME, Manchester (2018); Somewhere in Between, Wellcome Collection, London (2018); Coming Out: Sexuality Gender and Identity, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2017); The Zany Capsid, Hardwick Gallery, Gloucester (2017); and Alien Sex Club, Ambika P3, London and Homotopia Festival, Liverpool (2015).

Awards include Large Arts Award from CAPSID (2016); Hayward Curatorial Open for Shonky: The Aesthetics of Awkwardness (2016); a Small Arts Award for Alien Sex Club (2014); Sainsbury Scholar at The British School at Rome (2006-8); and his projects have been supported by Arts Council England. Residencies include Kavli Institute for Nanosciences, TU Delft (2020-21); and Skowhegan (2012).

← Mark Wallinger

Dr John Snow (1813-1858)

Yu-Chen Wang →

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