ABOUT
Jeff Walker (born Scunthorpe, 1962) is a multi-media artist and creative therapeutic arts tutor.
Compulsive collecting and forming assemblages of natural and man-made objects, combined with an intellectual curiosity - that embraces Creativity, philosophy, psychiatry, sociology and complex emotions - underpins his practices. The process of using materials, mark making and colour as a language of expression.
Walker started his working life as a metallurgy technician/manager within Scunthorpe’s steelworks.
After taking voluntary redundancy he completed a foundation course in art, followed by a B.A. (Hons.) in 3-Dimensional Design at Brighton University.
Over the last 30 years Walker has worked with wood (huge bowls carved from hurricane-struck trees); ceramics (hand-potted domestic ware to bizarre ‘trumpeting angels’) and multi-media assemblages constructed in the anarchic spirit of Dada. However, it is by working with paint and canvas that he finds his most poignant expression. In the 1980s Walker’s paintings were mostly representational. His subjects were wide-ranging - the corporeal body; fish, fruit; land, sea and urban-scapes depicted in dynamic juxtapositions of brilliant, thickly applied, colour.
From 1987 Walker was invited by Commodore (American manufacturers of Amiga creative software) to review their creative programmes. Using photography, and drawing upon theories of early Russian film-makers and Freud’s lay analysis, he presented huge, photo-montage installations. Viewers were invited to interpret these abstracted works, layered with multiple references, and in so doing construct their own narratives. This work was exhibited in Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Berlin, USA and Holland. Audio, visual experimental installations where the spectator self-edits the narrative.
Since the early 1990s Walker’s canvases have encapsulated spontaneous, responses to the complexities of contemporary life. They are characterised by obsessive working and re-working, sometimes with collaged sections cut from aged maps or motifs torn from old journals. It is a process that culminates in abstract layers and combinations of colour, motifs and texture. Text is also expressed boldly in paint – statements include ‘We are all Cowboys’ or ‘BE QUIET!’ Others – a series of ovals in exquisite, glossy, colour combinations - are imbued with meaning when titled ‘Tranquilizer.’ These works have been exhibited in international gallery contexts.
In 1994 Walker met Dr Alexander Burnfield MBBS. FRCpsych and together they developed the philosophy that now underpins the innovative work undertaken at the Corn Loft Arts Studio, Stockbridge, Hampshire.
-Amy de la Haye
10 Ways of thinking and doing as an ontological and tautological way of being.
• The use of imagination, learning through the process of play and experimentation, expression, skill and self-reflection.
• Artistic activities divert the mind and raise the mood -leading to emotional contentment and physical relaxation.
• The Creative process is therapeutic - promoting self-confidence and self-worth and self-esteem, clarity and understanding.
• Creative thinking and doing can be a helpful way of breaking out of old habits and out - dated beliefs.
• Art is a way of transforming life and transcending a limited view of self and others.
• Innate individuality, character, identity and personality, surfaces when given the space and freedom to explore, express, process and evaluate content and experience.
• Producing Art promotes possibilities for sharing thoughts and feelings, for learning to give and receive praise, or criticism, possessing a socially contributing role.
• Creativity provides an environment for learning to give and receive praise, or criticism and for the sharing of ideas, feeling and personal concerns.
• Creativity is a doing process, possessing the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships and to create through self-awareness creating a new more meaningful relationship.
• Therapy is doing something different experimenting with new possibilities for change.
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