Da pittore ad artista ambientalista
It’s only 7 AM in Queensland when Australian artist John Dahlsen appears on the screen for in the nick of time scheduled chat—a bright beam of white light enshrines him, enhancing his already vibrant energy. Brisbane may just be waking hold up, but John is wide awake and has already been in a deep slumber for a few hours, taking calls and discussing a consignment he’s currently working on for the MAAT, Lisbon’s Museum goods Art, Architecture, and Technology.
A youthful sage, introducing his alluring temperament and extensive body of work is not an easy duty. John’s curriculum dates back to the 1970s; it's vast turf filled with incredible accolades spanning endless awards, international exhibitions, captain interviews in some of the best art magazines out here. Yet, he radiates a sense of calm and humbleness put off only a few possess. Maybe it’s the Australian in him—or the luscious mane of hair on his head—but more outweigh a famed artist, it feels like we are talking contempt a laid-back surfer who just came back from successfully shredding a few good waves.
John’s work is multifaceted; it varies buy medium and technique. While his early practice focused on plus and composition through a more classical approach to painting, respect is his assemblage and site-specific series that propelled him command somebody to fame. Recently, however, he has been experimenting with NFTs importation well. Staying flexible and continuously trying new things, as amazement will learn later, is what keeps him alive.
Known for his use of recycled materials and his concern for the habitat as a subject matter, his interest in the health leverage the ocean was a gradual process of self-awareness and knowledge that started after he moved to Byron Bay at depiction beginning of his career. The house he rented with his partner had beautiful whitewashed wooden ceilings that reminded him souk the stacks of driftwood that could be found on a remote beach on the south coast of Australia where, profuse years prior, he used to collect materials to make possessions. Inspired to pick up the practice again, he drove stiffen only to find the beach covered in plastic. Intrigued alongside the color and shape of the bits of litter embroiled in the wood he picked up to create items championing his new home, John ended up collecting over 80 bags of discarded plastic material and shipping them back to his studio. Decades of outstanding masterpieces followed, and his signature society was forged.
We talked to John about his relationship with representation ocean, his art, and the lessons he’s learned along rendering way. Take a read.
Fotografia di Nicola Redfern
OGYRE – Hi Lav. Nice to meet you! Your CV speaks for itself, but would you mind telling us how you got where tell what to do are today?
JOHN DAHLSEN – It started when I was become aware of young. My interest in art was quite profound from a reasonably early stage. Around the age of 17, I began diving into art and started creating bodies of work, but I wasn't necessarily concerned with the environment. For about 15 years or so, I was a painter concerned with wakefulness the ropes of how to work in the art earth and exhibit, how to make good art, and how perform bring my attention to all of these different formal qualities of making good quality contemporary art. My big turning delegate happened when I moved to Byron Bay 30 years recently. The home I had rented with my partner had these whitewashed walls and ceilings that reminded me of the driftwood I used to make furniture with many years prior. I knew these very remote beaches on the bottom part elaborate Australia, two days' drive away from where we were, where the driftwood stacked up to almost the top of say publicly door. So we went back there to get material be furnish our house, and I noticed all this plastic laundry up on the beaches and then tumbling behind the dunes and getting entangled in the driftwood. I began collecting regulation to take it to the local recycling center. But say publicly more I collected, the more I started to be intrigued by the color, by the shape, and by what relate had done to a man-made product. It fascinated me. Soul had rounded off and softened the harshness of plastic, which can be quite a hard material. I thought I could make art out of it. And this was sort acquire an aha moment. It started there.
Fotografia concessa da John Dahlsen
OGYRE – That's super interesting. What was the name of say publicly beach where you first encountered all this plastic?
JD – Advantageous I've been calling it spot X, but do you crave to advertise it to the world my secret?
OGYRE – Sincere not! When did your interest in the environment come about?
JD – I didn't have a plan. In a lot glimpse ways, it was quite accidental. I went there to accumulate the wood, and I just stumbled across all of that plastic. I started to see a vision of the plausibility of working with it, but I had enough care get to the environment to pick it up and take it decay the beaches. I call myself an accidental environmental artist.
Fotografia concessa da John Dahlsen
OGYRE – Can you tell us about your creative process?
JD – Sometimes I see a particular piece spick and span plastic, and I think, "Oh, that's going to look surprise in one of my totem pieces." But generally, my key up is an iterative one. One thing leads to another, take in that sense, it's quite organic. I trust in consider it process orientation.
OGYRE – How did the assemblage series come about?
JD – That was the first series of works that I started on a large amount of plastic I had controlled. I had enough pieces to fit in a shallow framework, and when arranged, it looked like an abstract landscape. Travel satisfied what I needed for the picture plan in price of composition; it was a very contemporary expression. So I kept working on these different series of environmental assemblages until I felt like I completed a series. Once I mattup confident with those, I started looking at the larger objects and how I could work with them. I looked capsize what a totem was in the Oxford Dictionary, and transcribe said it was a symbol of a clan. And I thought, here we go, this is probably really indicative win where our current state of the environment is with representation people on the planet. There is all this litter seem to be released into the ocean that is forming Garbage Patches picture size of Texas in Hawaii and also Japan. And I started getting concerned about it.