Richard Walker, Camberwell Beauty

About

Richard Walker’s work is known and admired for its energy and vibrancy, use of colour, graphic motifs, text and a clear influence of the artist’s love of architecture.

Many of the prints in this retrospective exhibition reflect the era in which they were made – music icons such as Patti Smith, David Bowie and John Lennon are featured in early works, text refers to current issues, news stories or gossip. As an artist who channels strong emotions into his work, some of Richard Walker’s prints respond to very serious current issues and events. In more recent work this includes a lithograph of the statue of Gandhi in Tavistock Square following the 7/7 London bombs.

Richard Walker has shown with Curwen Gallery since 1996 and ‘Camberwell Beauty’ is his 10th solo show at Curwen Gallery. He has exhibited widely in UK and internationally since graduating from Camberwell School of Art, 40 years ago. This exhibition is a retrospective of Walker’s printmaking and the transitions it has made throughout his career, and also reflects the popular culture of these 40 years.

The exhibition will be opened by Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP for Camberwell & Peckham

“In my last week as an art student at Camberwell in 1976, the external assessors, who were grading the degree shows, said that I was either a first class honours or an utter failure and

...nothing in between.

Those three words have stuck with me since that time. There was something in the air on both sides of the Atlantic: the explosion of punk and a general cultural upheaval was about to happen. My language then was Post-Pop which had evolved into a darker vision since the 60s dealing with rebellion, identity and sexuality.

I went on to do MA Printmaking at Chelsea, which was located just off Kings Road, which of course was the epicentre of the new wave.  Initially I was inspired by Richard Hamilton, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol but later by Gerhard Richter, Sigma Polke, Ed Ruscha and Christo.

Music sources were Patti Smith, who had just released 'Horses', the guiding light of David Bowie and of course Brian Eno, whose 'Oblique Strategies' I used as a creative tool in my work.

My early screen prints reflected this frenzy:  Max Wykes Joyce reviewing my first exhibition 'One Man Show Business' in 1978 in Arts Review said......'where glamour, mayhem and gossip overlap'. This was probably true, but I still have a fondness for that period, as it captured the zeitgeist.

After this initial period of enlightenment, I flew off to New York as soon as the cheap flights came in, care of Freddie Laker. From then on my work became a love poem to that city...my own walk on the wild side. I was able to shed my Englishness and celebrate the freedom that America offered me. The resulting prints I produced inspired by that trip were big, bold and audacious.

Even though painting and drawing began to take over, printmaking was, and still is, at the centre of my vision. There's a certain sensibility and a way of thinking in 'layers'....enabling the constant subtraction and addition during the process and the ability to rework images. The random results and 'happy accidents' are part of this methodology which still informs most of my creative work.

My aesthetic journey since the 70s has taken many directions including film, music, architecture with many diverse commissions. This retrospective, named after the butterfly, (referencing the place where it all began and all the associations of that exotic creature), collects key works from all periods.

There'll be prints from the Pop beginnings through to the later deconstructed cityscapes, there'll be mono prints and pieces that have never been shown before, and new work, including a tribute to David Bowie... which coming full circle, sadly revisits the earliest inspiration.

From 1976 to the present and indeed...everything in between”

Richard Walker 2016

Born Yorkshire, England in 1954, Richard Walker studied at 1973-6 Camberwell School of Art, London (BA Graphic Arts) then at 1976-7 Chelsea School of Art, London (MA Printmaking). His work is featured in many corporate and private collections in the UK and worldwide, having been commissioned for many large scale projects and installations. A book on his work, ‘Image and Myth’ was published in 2004. (Paul Holberton Publications, London). Richard lives and works in London and Brighton.