Bonfire II, North Branch (Primary Title)

I never believed that abstract art should be merely frontal. Why can’t it have all the attributes that Titian has, or Rembrandt has? Why can’t it have volume; why can’t it have air? —John Walker Walker responds to the landscape and its changing atmosphere by incorporating references to water, clouds, rainbows, trees, and earth. Over the past decade, he has drawn inspiration from a tidal cove on the coast of Maine near the Damariscotta River. He sometimes even uses actual mud from the cove: the rough texture provides a dynamic gestural presence and a stark contrast to bright-colored strokes that conjure the ethereal nature of light, fire, and smoke. Through such means, Walker’s paintings balance realistic landscapes with painterly abstraction, attending equally to space and surface.