John Wolseley is a contemporary Australian landscape artist born in 1938. He settled in Australia in 1976 and extensively traveled the outback and desert regions between 1979 to 2006, producing artwork documenting the landscapes. His work combines detailed scientific illustrations with snippets of poetry and musings. Wolseley sees himself documenting what remains rather than discovering new things. He uses techniques like frottage to incorporate texture and topographic details in his collage-like paintings depicting the places he observes through quiet contemplation.

1. {
John Wolseley
Contemporary Landscape Artist

2.  Don’t say a word.
 Simply take out your VAPD and pen.
Write down all that you
observe…

9.  What have we been looking at?
 What frame/s does this fit under? What
aspect/s of the Conceptual Framework does
this fit into?
 What have you observed?
What did you discover
about John Wolseley?

10.  Born: 1938
 Settled in AUS: 1976
 1979 – 2006 Travelled extensively around
Australia, and some foreign
countries, but mostly around
desert regions and the outback.
Biography

12. Wild Cries Wild Wings of Wetland and
Swamp: Propositions of an Uncertain Future
by John Wolseley (2011). Oil painting with waterproof
varnish on ply wood.

13.  John Wolseley could pass
for a 19th Century
gentleman explorer.
 He is an artist, a naturalist
and a geographer, rolled
into one.
 His work is strikingly
contemporary, often with
inclusions of details
mappings and botanical,
scientific illustrations of
birds, lizards etc.

14.  Wolseley documents what is left rather than documenting what he
discovers.
 The old gentleman naturalists were looking forward and
discovering new things, whereas I am looking back, I am
deconstructing that. I’m often the last to see something,
rather than the first. ~ John Wolseley
The last journey of the Regent Honeyeater by John
Wolseley (2004).

15.  His work also is known to include snippets of poetry, scientific
diagrams and musings.
 His maps are not readable in the conventional sense: they whirl
about through time and space…
 He is a Renaissance man without the commitment to
‘perspective’. His perspective lives in his historical application of
different aspects of thought and feeling.

16.  The Memory Of Fire by John Wolseley (2003).
 Why do you think the artist chose to use the technique of frottage in
the creation of this artwork?
Frottage: rubbing charcoal, pencil etc. over a
textured surface to impress it’s design upon the
markings on the paper.

17.  Most people have a very goal-orientated job, but what I tend to do
is go to a place and just sit there and day dream, really, and slowly,
because you are so quiet and still, you get to learn a lot about a
place. I start with a lot of exploratory drawings which end up in the
paintings as sort of collages, then I build up a picture of the place.
~ John Wolseley