Recall and Abstraction, 2019

(Image: Anamnesis Study 1 2019 graphite and oil paint on linen 51 x 46cm, $3,500)

The Australian Painter John Waller digs deep into the most inhospitable of Antipodean landscapes to capture the terror and beauty of nature.

His work explores memory made real by abstraction.

From the flat, dry plains of the Mallee, the drought-ridden expanses of his childhood between the Murray River and South-Western New South Wales and the semi-arid desert landscapes of Central Australia, he unearths rich seams of luscious and evocative colour and excavates the vastness of its spatial qualities.

Waller works in the language of abstraction – counterpointed blocks of colour, sweeping earthy glazes, a minimalist layering and stripping back process, occasionally mixing media and materials with a degree of seamless virtuosity.

Art historian Dr Christopher Heathcote has likened these works to “hearing a passage of music performed by a virtuoso soloist…One can savour it on an immediate sensual level, letting the glistening notes, the tonal shifts, the carefully spiced rhythmic textures, lift and carry along your imagination.”

– Dr Christopher Heathcote