HENRY JOCK WALKER

Surfer, sewer, painter, performer and printmaker, Henry Jock Walker (b. 1986) lives and works in a state of flow, seeking intergenerational community and collaborative projects, mentoring and being mentored.  This connective tissue of making with others is what builds and replenishes his belief in art as practice of optimism.

Attending South Australian School of Art with an Honours year at Victorian College of the Arts were pivotal, expanding Walker’s perspective and instilling a sense of unlimited potential in everything.  And this is what the different avenues of his practice aim to create for others: an intuitive, DIY approach; the importance of playful interaction, collaboration and cross-pollination; and fun and exciting situations with more complex layers to explore. 

A decade ago, Walker embarked on a nine-month tour around Australia in a painted HiAce van, beginning a deep dive into learning and making in public, forming lasting friendships and creative connections.  Henry's Mobile Studio (2013) dropped into communities, carparks and beaches, and invited anyone to join in workshops, performances and site-related exhibitions.

Back home on Kaurna land, he became a founding member of performance collective The Bait Fridge (est. 2015), which draws on Fluxus principles of process-centred art-making using mainly recycled and found materials.  The 15 core and 30-plus fluctuating members perform and run workshops in galleries, public spaces and festivals. 

In parallel, Walker’s gallery practice has evolved from performative action painting while surfing into labour-intensive, industrially sewn images.  Made with the assistance of seamster and pattern-maker Lachy Lang, the patchworks of colourful fragments from discarded wetsuits retain a faint smell of salt, sweat and urine.  But what may look like happenstance or an organic coming-together is grounded by a conceptual rigour. 

Neoprene was Walker’s entry point into the material connectivity of things.  Quilting, poetic titles, the reuse of materials and ensuing the singularity of the artist all challenge the historically masculine norms of both abstract painting and surf culture.  Seaford Proem (2021) takes his collaborative ethos back to the ocean, flipping the classic virtuoso surf video.  Here, a conjoined trio of surfers, zipped into linked wetsuits to resemble giant kelp creatures, must collaborate rather than compete to paddle and surf.

Committed to an open-studio process, from 2016 onwards visitors have been invited into Walker’s works-in-progress at his Egg and Dart Gallery in Thirroul prior to the public exhibitions.  In Ultra Flex (2024), his most recent neoprene hybrid painting/sculpture/installations have clearly evolved in complexity and scale.  Re-stretched inside powder-coated aluminium frames, the softly choreographed sun-drenched ocean skins become fluid abstract compositions of figuratively paired body parts. 

The deeply satisfying essence of his practice is in building frameworks to facilitate multiple making processes—sewing neoprene, printing recycled clothing, and constructing large sculptures and structures with Bait Fridge.  Collectively and individually, Walker works from Torquay to Tokyo, Arnhem Land to NYC.

To refine and sustain his interdisciplinary and socially engaged critical art practice, he is considering an MFA (Fine Arts) at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, located in the heart of a surfing and skateboarding culture.  In his own words, Henry Jock Walker is primed to take on new challenges to “explore interactive projects on a larger scale, to keep the process raw, honest, and open.”

Essay written by Melinda Rackham, September 2024. 

Melinda Rackham writes on art, artists, feminisms and adoption.  An Adjunct Research Professor at UniSA Creative, her latest book CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions since 2008 (2023) was co-authored with Elvis Richardson.  Rackham lives and works in Tarntanya/Adelaide.