Bodil Droga - John Wolseley
Australian contemporary artist John Wolseley is renowned for his Australian bush landscape paintings and sketches. Wolseley uses the landscape as a metaphor in his works to ‘explore the way geology contributes to the spirit of the landscape and to discover how we dwell and exist within a landscape’ whilst also addressing various eco-logical issues including the conservation of endangered species as well as the constant changing process of the Australian environment. Arriving in Australia in 1976, Wolseley predominantly explores how various flora and fauna develop, grow and survive in this vast, barren and often sublime landscape. Through Wolseley’s artworks, Botanist’s Camp and Bladderwort species II – Giraween flood plain, and his unique use of materials, Wolseley explores the Australian landscape with great beauty.
John Wolseley, born in 1938 in England, settled in Australia in 1976, at the age of 38. Now, 34 years later, he is still living and working in Australia and is widely regarded as one of the most foremost Australian artists of his generation. Since then, he has travelled and painted all over the continent, from the deserts of central Australia, to the forests of Tasmania and the tidal reaches of remote Northern Territory. In his earlier years, Wolseley worked in Paris at Atelier 17 with Stanley William, as well as in London at the Birgit Skiolds Print Workshop, and has continued to develop prints and artworks by employing a range of experimental art-making technologies. As a passionate watercolourist, Wolseley has incorporated his interest in nature with his working life, by developing detailed studies of the landscapes he paints, which is evident in many of Wolseley’s artworks. John Wolseley’s art-making involves the most detailed of sketches along side works on a monumental scale, using the strategies of collage and assemblage. Shortly after his arrival in Australia, Wolseley noted in his