THE exhibition of paintings by leading landscape artist John R Walker, now showing at Moree Plains Gallery, includes works especially created by the artist while recently visiting the district.
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Walker travelled to Moree before the opening of his show and stayed on a local property. He painted works at a well known site called The Rocks, on the Gwydir River east of Moree.
The artist completed 12 works in the medium of gouache on paper. The paintings will be on show and on sale at the gallery until October 28.
Gallery director Katrina Rumley said Walker was a major expressionist figurative painter who drew inspiration from experiences of the landscape as well as memories of places he had visited.
“Several works in the current exhibition were shown earlier this year at Utopia, Walker’s Sydney gallery. The Utopia gallery and the artist have together generously organised this exhibition, which comprises key works completed by the artist over the past decade,” Ms Rumley said.
She said Walker, from his home base at Braidwood south of Goulburn, regularly trekked into the countryside to paint works in familiar and new territories.
“The artist’s 1999 painting of Garie Beach, which he generously donated to Moree Plains Gallery, is an expressionist interpretation of a beautiful section of the Royal National Park, south of Sydney.
“Walker is an ardent admirer of Aboriginal art, especially works from the Western Desert.
“In 2009, he generously presented the Moree Plains Gallery with a painting, Witchetty Grubs, by Walpiri artist Mary Dixon Nungarrayi, and an untitled canvas by Takariya Napaltjarri from the Pintupi language group,” Ms Rumley said.
The works Walker created by the riverside near Moree, Ms Rumley said, provided a rare opportunity for gallery visitors to see and appreciate paintings that uniquely evoked the power and beauty of the local landscape.
Walker has generously donated two of the gouache paintings to the gallery.
The works will be offered for sale, auctioned, or raffled to raise funds for the gallery’s work.