JAKE WALKER
Walker is a Melbourne-based painter whose work explores the cyclical recursions of modernism in the contemporary era, often through the use of readymade objects, the formal idiom of abstraction, and the framing function of architectural modernism, which doubles as a personal framing device for the artist. Typically, his intimately scaled paintings are intrinsically and directly entwined their surroundings: either by incorporating imagery of a specific environment (such as a modernist interior from an Ian Athfield or Roger Walker architectural design in which the artist lived whilst growing up), or by literally painting onto the surface of domestic objects (such as pre-existing paintings salvaged from op shops, or old, worn-out PC laptops).*
*Helen Hughes, 2012
In Paintings and Relief Walker will exhibit a new series of abstracted landscape paintings, formed through multiple layers of paint applied with a palette knife over a considerable length of time to create a sense of history. Where the relief lies is not only in the purge of creativity that happens through the act of painting, but also the very nature of the paintings’ framing – glazed ceramic frames
made by the artist that give the otherwise two-dimensional works sculptural form.
Walker (b. 1971, Wellington, New Zealand) completed studies at the Whitirea Art School, Wellington in 1989 and Otago School of Fine Art, Dunedin in 1991. Recent solo exhibitions include Painting and Relief, Studio 12, Gertrude Contemporary, 2012; Jake Walker and Mark Rodda (with Mark Rodda), Utopian Slumps at Auckland Art Fair, New Zealand, 2011; Paintings, Gallery 9, Sydney, 2011; Owner Builder, Utopian Slumps, 2011; Have a Go, Gallery 9, Sydney, 2009; New Past Painting Group, James Dorahy Project Space, Sydney, 2007; The Inland Sea (with Mark Rodda), Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2007; and Jake Walker, Neut Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 2003. Selected group exhibitions include Reason and Rhyme, Gertrude Contemporary, 2011; The Painting Group, Utopian Slumps, 2010; Points of View, Torlano Galleries, 2010; Territorial Pissings, Utopian Slumps, 2010; I’m worse at what I do best, curated by Tom Polo, Parramatta Artist Studios, New South Wales, 2009; Visage, Firstdraft, Sydney, 2009; Texticles, curated by Rob McHaffie, TCB art inc., Melbourne, 2009; and SafARI, Sydney, 2006. Walker was winner of the inaugural Arkley Award in 2010, and finalist in the Blake Prize in 2009, the Fishers Ghost Art Prize in 2006 and Mosman Art Prize in 2006. He is a current Gertrude Contemporary studio artist whose work is held in the Chartwell Collection, New Zealand, and various private collections in Australia and overseas.
