Exhibitions Animal Architecture: Deep Time
20.03.26 to 11.04.26
Roslyn Oxley Gallery9, Sydney
In the last few years John Wolseley has been documenting and painting the return of endangered animal species to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy sanctuaries in Northern Australia. Bilbies, Bettongs, Golden Bandicoots, Great Desert Skinks and many more. The fruits of his time in desert and rainforest can be seen in this exhibition of works on paper, woodcuts and etchings. These works describe the marvellous engineering above and below ground of these desert animals; and the byzantine architecture of birds and lizards as they dwell within bark or rock in the rainforests of Northern New South Wales
Large rambling collages combine detailed drawings of animals, plants and insects with diagrams stolen from the earth sciences. These are then collaged onto other papers which have been subjected to different modes of nature printing including marks from rock, bark and even the skin of reptiles.
Last year as the artist wandered along the creeks and gorges of the MacDonnell Ranges he also investigated the animal architecture of earlier creatures as they evolved in Deep Time. He made drawings of fossiliferous rocks – Trilobite nests and Annelid worm tubes; and further back in time the domes of stromatolites which had grown layer by layer in the shallow seas of the Cretaceous.
These astonishing works celebrate nature in all its power and intricacy, at a time when the natural world is under cataclysmic threat. In these images of healing and restoration, we discover serene illuminations of hope and an urgent environmental ethic.
The other side of paradise 2026
watercolour and graphite on paper
56 x 76 cms
Walk through geological strata – Proterozoic to late Silurian: each step a million years II 2025
watercolour, graphite, charcoal, frottage and relief printing on paper
126 x 135.5
Walk through geological strata – Proterozoic to late Silurian, each step a million years III 2026
watercolour, graphite, charcoal and relief prints chine-collé on paper
109 x 125 cms
Great desert skink commune – basking mound, birthing pool and defecatorium 2026
watercolour and graphite on paper
117 x 154 cms
Great desert skink colony with map of basking mound, birthing pool and defecatorium 2025
watercolour and graphite on paper with ink on gampi diagram
118 x 153.5 cms
Mimesis - Leaf-tailed geckos on bark, moss and lichen I 2025
watercolour, graphite, charcoal, frottage and relief printing on paper.
81 x 206 cms
Palimpsest of desert tracks – Burrowing betong, Hare wallaby, Brush-tailed mulgara, Bilby and Great desert skink 2026
watercolour charcoal and graphite on paper
56 x 76 cms
Tracks in the Tanami - mulgaras and honeyeaters pollinate the upside-down flowers 2025
watercolour and graphite on paper
70 x 102 cms
Yellow-throated miner sucking nectar from upside–down plants as Burrowing bettongs sleep the day away in their mazy warrens 2025
watercolour and graphite on paper
117.5 x 152.5
Burrowing bettong warren with one lone bilby burrow 2025
watercolour and graphite on paper
77.5 x 102 cms