I first came to the artwork of John Wolseley through the writing of Roger Deakin (Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees). And was struck by one particular aspect of his practice:
Unclipping the first sheet and working with the next layer, Wolseley approached the carbon ruins of some casuarina scrub and bashed the paper against the clusters of burnt seeds. They left dancing charcoal dots like musical notations. Wolseley calls this aleatory way of working frottage, from the French verb to rub. It began, he said, when the easel accidentally fell face forward on to the top of a burnt bush, and he realized that the marks it made were more interesting than his half-finished conventional drawing; the landscape was drawing itself.
See a video clip of an interview courtesy of the National Gallery of Victoria
https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/john-wolseley/
And so for day 2547
03.12.2013