John Wolseley's Australian Eye

John Wolseley has been one of my favorite Australian painters for years. He gave a guest lecture when I was a student at art school, and I was tremendously excited by his unconventional (to me) view of the Australian landscape. He spoke about the way the landscape changes progressively over time: there isn't the grand vista that is iconic in European art. It was revelatory, this idea that the Australian landscape unfurls gradually, almost grudgingly, revealing its beauty only to the most persistent and patient eye.

Wolseley is a technically brilliant artist who can actually draw and paint, but whose work pushes the boundaries of medium and format. He's one of those important artists who actually understand the landscape and culture in which they work, and don't try to shoehorn it into outmoded European stylistic conventions. I remember being entranced by his The Harmonic Patterns of Mallee Birdsong when I was lucky enough to see it on show. In an era when so much contemporary art is cynical, arrogant and aggressive, his drawing is refreshingly optimistic and full of life.

I'm not enough of an art historian or critic to know where Wolsely 'fits' in the big scheme of contemporary Australian art, but I reckon his work sits comfortably alongside artists like John Olsen, Fred Williams and Robert Juniper.

Wolseley has taken out the Trustees Prize for Watercolour in the 2008 Archibald Prize, 'Camel Gate, Border Track', a wonderfully sprawling and untidy piece replete with variously crisp, fragile, and exploratory mark-making so evocative of the Australian bush.