JFW Five Points Gallery review
John Frederick Walker Torn Twisted Text (2023)
mixed media / altered book in artist’s frame 14 ¼ x 32 ½ x 2 ½ inches
My solo exhibition “Torn Books and Lost Texts” at the TDF gallery at Five Points in Torrington, CT was reviewed by art critic Tracey O’Shaughnessy in her Oct. 10th review in the Waterbury Republican-American. She writes:
“Five Points Gallery is…exhibiting John Frederick Walker’s compelling mixed media works examining books and their place in society.
By physically altering them through cutting, burning, painting and scribbling over texts and images, Walker evokes a feeling of what banning books means: censorship, suppression of information and the crushing of human expression…Walker’s pieces, which rip, tear, twist and paint over books, hints at that loss of knowledge. It’s not just that books can be misplaced, buried, burned or lost, Walker suggests, but that the juicy bits could be ripped out, burned or painted over, and thereby ignored.
At a time when books are so violently fought over, Walker’s mixed media works – particularly as they are painted with blood red or charcoal black – suggest that the most controversial books are never really read, but instead torn assunder. Walker includes neither words, illustrations or pictures. His is the opposite of the illuminated manuscript. Instead, they embody the idea of a book that has functioned for a millennium as a near-universal means of encoding vast amounts of human culture.”
The exhibition is on though November 9, 2024.
JFW at Five Points Gallery
My solo exhibition “Torn Books and Lost Texts” in the TDP Gallery of Five Points Gallery of Torrington Connecticut features altered, painted volumes (“Atlas Agonistes” shown here) addressing the meaning of what the ripped-out content of an open book might still say to the viewer. The exhibition will be on view through November 9th, 2024.
JFW at Standard Space Gallery
I’m very pleased to be in the 2-person “This World” exhibition at Standard Space Gallery in Sharon CT. Pictured here is ‘History Lesson’ (2022), one of 9 bookworks of mine on display along with 11 collages and glazed stoneware pieces by Jeff Joyce @the.joycer.
The exhibition remains on view through October 6, 2024.
JFW in Lightwood magazine
Lightwood is an online magazine on life and the arts in the 21st century, edited by poet and publisher Laurence Carr, who came for a recent studio visit. The resulting post on my work, with photos and texts, is now out in the Fall issue #15. “Artist and writer John Frederick Walker is book person, both as an author and as a visual creator using books as the primary medium for his visually and emotionally charged, 3-dimensional artworks. Lightwood visited his studio and was caught up in both his process and his finished pieces where discarded and worn books are saved from the compost pile and fire to become visual and ghostly literary objects of beauty and mystery.”
Check out the full post:
https://lightwoodpress.com/2023/09/22/artists-in-space-john-frederick-walker-book-art/
JFW in Furnace “Rotating / Axis” show November 12
I’m very pleased to have two works in a group exhibition opening on November 12, 3-5 pm at Furnace – Art on Paper Archive, Falls Village, CT.
Furnace – Art on Paper Archive
107 Main Street, Falls Village, CT 06031
Winter Gallery Hours
Saturday, 11am – 4pm
& by appointment.
www.furnace-artonpaperarchive.com
Remembering Richard D. Estes
Wildlife biologist Dr. Richard D. Estes has passed away.
Estes was more than an expert, he was a mentor, and an inspiration—to me and many others. The 93-year-old founder and former chair of the IUCN Antelope Specialist Group was the author of The Behavior Guide to African Mammals, The Safari Companion, The Gnu’s World and other authoritative texts, and a legend in the field of African wildlife conservation.
What is known about the wildebeest is largely based on his research. But his studies extended to other species as well, including the giant sable antelope of Angola. He and his wife Runi did fieldwork in 1969-70 and co-authored a definitive paper on this majestic and critically endangered species, the country’s national animal.
The giant sable was thought to have been wiped out during Angola’s long civil war (1975-2002). The indefatigable Estes participated in several attempts to determine if any remnant population survived. I was privileged to join him and other biologists on several expeditions into Angola’s highlands. Above, Estes (then in his 80s) scans the bleak Angolan woodlands in 2008 for any sign of the creature.
In 2009, we both joined a capture operation organized by Dr. Pedro Vaz Pinto, who had managed to obtain photographs of a few surviving giant sables. Aided by veterinarian Dr. Pete Morkel, the expedition found some twenty animals, and rounded up enough of them to form a captive breeding group, saving the giant sable from extinction.
Estes will be missed.
The Giant Sable remains endangered
Ashley Stimpson’s recent, riveting reporting in Atlas Obscura focuses on biologist Pedro Vaz Pinto, who spearheaded efforts to save Angola’s walking emblem, the giant sable antelope. Against all odds, the 2009 expedition he headed to find and capture some to create a captive breeding herd, succeeded.
“Though Vaz Pinto has enjoyed many magical moments over the course of his 20-year mission to save the charismatic ungulate, the creature’s future remains fraught,” Stimpson writes. There are only about a hundred of them in Cangandala National Park, perhaps only 300 total in Angola, which is struggling economically, and poaching is on the rise as people struggle to survive.
JFW Review of Myanmar’s Growing Illegal Ivory Trade with China
“This disturbing report is the last of the late Esmond Martin’s collaborations with Lucy Vigne, who worked with him on a groundbreaking series of meticulously researched monographs on endangered wildlife trade studies, including analyses of Asian ivory markets covering three decades. Vigne brought this project to completion in 2018….”
To read the rest of my review, which appears in Pachyderm No. 61, July 2019 – June 2020, click here.
Towers of Ivory: Does Japan have an ivory problem? It’s complicated.
In a just-published essay in The Smart Set, I examine Japan’s domestic legal ivory market, which is widely thought by many conservationists to be contributing to elephant poaching. Does it?
Given the widespread laundering of poached tusks in national ivory markets elsewhere, most elephant advocates are convinced that it must be happening in Japan as well — even if there’s no evidence of it.
The problem Japan has with ivory sales is much more complicated: it’s a tangle of seductive traditional art, insufficient enforcement and growing rejection of sustainable wildlife trade….
Read the entire article at https://www.thesmartset.com/towers-of-ivory/
JFW in Craven Contemporary “New Nudes” show November 16 – Jan 19
John Frederick Walker, Lip Service (2012)
“New Nudes” is a group show of some of the hottest contemporary artists who are either new or showing the male and female body in a new way. The two largest works in the show are collages by Mickalene Thomas and Troy Michie which appear on the long gallery wall. Other smaller works shown alongside are by artists including Danielle Orchard, Sam McKinniss, Lou Fratino, Mona Kuhn, Bruno Leydet, Linder, Paul Sepuya, Elad Lassry, Jeremy Kost and Erwin Olaf.
The show will also feature a table of altered book works by local Washington, CT based artist John Frederick Walker.
CRAVEN CONTEMPORARY / 4 Fulling Lane / Kent, CT 06757
John Frederick Walker 
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