John Walker

British artist John Walker claims that in his younger days painting in the 1960s, he was trying to "find a way to be an abstract painter about figurative issues. I was trying to invent non-figurative forms to make my figurative forms obsolete." Throughout his career, Walker remained true to the beliefs of Abstract Expressionism: spontaneity, focus on feelings, non-objectivity, rebellion. While his paintings maintain a touch of figuration and sometimes incorporate text, they remain unpredictable and immediate, with an unusual use of materials and layering of paint and canvas. His most recent paintings inspired by the Maine coast respond to the landscape, personalizing and abstracting it with rough texture and a dynamic painterly presence. Among his many awards, Walker has represented England in the 1972 Venice Biennale, received a Guggenheim for painting in 1981, and was a finalist for the Turner Prize in 1985. Walker lives and teaches in Boston, Massachusetts.