Biography

“Don’t be a sheep, but if you absolutely insist, be a black one”
JJ Walker

JJ Walker—an English artist, product and graphic designer has a lifelong passion for art that has never waivered. As a 11 year old he would thumb through the Athena poster racks in his favourite record stores looking for the latest visionary landscapes from Rodney Mathews or meticulously copy (in oil) the wildly erotic and perfectly executed airbrush images of Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama (1947 – ). Although Walker’s work has taken a very different path to his early influences, there is still something of that adolescent fascination with the potent mix of artist as craftsman and generator of visual—previously unrealised ideas that runs through his work today. For Walker the close marriage of well conceived and crafted aesthetic and his desire to share a social, political, consumer or cultural idea with an audience is important in order to create what he terms ‘the perfect bloom’ in art. A visceral/mental event where a viewer effectively experiences the full gamut of stimulation, aesthetically, emotionally and intellectually—akin to falling in love with the idea and its presentation.

Finding traction as an artist in his fifties and working more vigorously than ever in multiple media he explores diverse avenues related to the human condition and constantly questions how contemporary art is defined and evaluated in our media and information saturated era. He examines and utilises classic art forms, using what (at times) could be termed ‘conventional’ aesthetics, but with an added twist. The human form is often present, but always playfully adapted, mutated (sometimes mutilated) and explored to tell a particular story about the dark, contradictory, humorous and often bizarre nature of people—be it at individual or herd mentality level. The double entendre and mimetic deception are also scattered throughout his approach. Born from his background work in advertising and graphic design that often resorts to juxtaposition and unexpected combinations of ideas, objects and elements to jolt the world of the saturated, tired consumer into a new inviting, fresh and engaging space.

Walker is an artist unafraid to extend the boundaries of proportion and balance. Highly engaged, and at play with the topic of aesthetics, stating that while “nature offers a common, universally understood aesthetic template, that many artists use to some extent or another”, the forced, nurtured, learned and manufactured aesthetics that commercialism coates society with (what he terms the King’s New Clothes syndrome—most readily identifiable and prevalent in the world of fashion) are also an rich area for intrigue and exploration. The notion of the movement of kitsch objects (for example)—derided and scorned at one level that can be somehow shunted to the other end of the value spectrum and be lauded as worthy art objects, deserving our attention is an area he loves to dive into.

Citing the work of the great Victorian wit, playwright and gothic novelist, Oscar Wilde in this regard. The philosophy of dress (Ocsar Wilde 1854-1900). First appearing in the New-York Tribune in 1885.

“Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal. Indeed what is a fashion really? A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months!”