Encountering the Australian landscape can lead to all sorts of experiences. John Waller’s abstract paintings transport us into a soft, abstracted world of sunrises and misty mornings. After spending time on Tasmania’s King Island, Waller’s observation of the land and sea directed his hand to soft layering, creating a velvety glow.
Other works in the collection portray his take on the sun-pounded red earth; fields of dry grass, even crops struggling in the outback heat. The configuration is distilled from an aerial viewpoint, looking down at a pattern of tracks and paddocks.
Waller proves to have a mastered hand, with mix of constant lines and calculated curves. His composition is so well balanced, the canvas creates an optical pull, zoning hot and cool colours, resulting in stunning artwork that vibrates between flat-design and spatial-landscape.
The strength in vibrancy and his sense of spatial awareness and balance, embraces the viewer to journey through the landscape of colour and texture. The composition which John Waller has meticulously yet effortlessly achieved goes hand-in-hand with the depth of his colour field. With hints of spatial illusion similar to the famous Hans Hofmann, John Waller’s canvases wear their cosmopolitan sophistication with quiet facility
This exhibition will highlight this deconstruction as Waller moves beyond mere geometric abstraction and transcends into colour dominated fields. Continuing a discourse inaugurated by Paul Cézanne in the 1880s, Waller’s concepts distils the formal qualities of landscape, creating new environments of verticals and horizontals, improvised organic forms, and of vivid chromatic jurisdiction.
Growing up in Mildura, country Victoria, Waller observed the flat plains and ochre coloured wheat fields that today echo through his work. After completing degrees in Sculpture at RMIT, Waller has gone on to exhibit both nationally and internationally, as well as having artwork in prestigious private and public collections including the La Trobe University Art Collection and ArtBank Australia.
Image: Shadow Trace III, 110cm x 92cm. Oil, Acrylic & Graphite on Linen.
