A Form of Honesty

This exhibition marks the first solo institutional exhibition of American artist Bill Walton outside of the US, bringing together ten surprising and subtly sentimental sculptural works from across the artist’s quietly remarkable practice.

Bill Walton (b. 1931, New Jersey; d. 2010, Philadelphia) spent most of his life in Philadelphia, where he worked as a commercial printer and, over time, developed a self-taught artistic practice. Interested in the materials he used in the process of printing, including wood, lead and steel, more than the finished product, Walton began making sculptures. In his practice, he enacted simple gestures of folding, cutting and stacking, assembling his works by hand using the techniques he had learnt from his trade.

The sculptural works in this exhibition evidence Walton’s varied and changeable approach to making sculpture. Despite employing the formal language of minimalism, Walton’s interests and influences prove broader and more mischievous. Through small and concentrated works he created illusions which obscured and revealed the world around him.

Assemblages of lead, wood, copper, glass, concrete and textile illuminate the artist's view that the materials in his work remained subject to change. Materials that appear fixed had the potential to be reworked or prove to be entirely different upon closer inspection. They often appear in unexpected places or in unexpected ways; what appears to be wood may actually be copper, a piece of soft fabric may in fact, have been stiffened with paint.

An active and valued member of his local artistic community, Walton enjoyed experimenting with artistic conventions, presenting a carefully crafted piece that would read as a found object, or lighting the space between his works rather than the works themselves.

The artist often resisted dating his work, preferring to acknowledge the history and ongoing potential of his materials. Instead of fixing them in time, individual sculptures would be worked on, rearranged, divided or combined; never not in process. The exhibition’s title is taken from an essay by curator Richard Torchia who wrote "When asked about his refusal to assign his works to particular years, [Walton] explains that it is not a strategy to mystify but, rather, a form of honesty." Titles also served as an important device for Walton, alluding to people, places and sensibilities he was fond of in his daily life. For example, his Sweet Lou and Marie works, two of which feature in the exhibition, serve as a series of portraits of the couple who ran his local diner and became his friends.

Each alchemical sculpture, whether a piece of seemingly unremarkable wood spliced with a glint of silver or a piece of fabric that appears soft and malleable but is fixed, reminds us of our continually changing relationship with ‘truth’ and artifice in the world around us. Inspired by commonplace materials and simple gestures, Walton’s practice pursued the intensely intimate, the unknown and the sublime in the everyday.