Untitled 1970

Curator: Here we have an "Untitled" work by John Walker, held here at the Tate. Editor: It feels almost geological, a strange landscape with those weighty, almost volcanic forms at the bottom, and then a collage of, are those food stuffs up top? Curator: There's a definite push and pull here between the abstract expressionist ground and those more tactile, collaged elements. It's the tension that really sings to me. Editor: For me it's all about the layering – the build-up of paint, the deliberate roughness. You can almost smell the studio, the linseed oil, the sheer labour. Curator: Precisely! It’s a conversation between chaos and order, a raw kind of beauty. Editor: I agree. And to think about the production, the consumption of material itself... It’s a complex piece.