Prahran 12 1981

Curator: John Walker's small etching, "Prahran 12," really throws you into a shadowy headspace, doesn't it? Editor: It does. Almost primal. The heavy blacks and stark whites create a mood of brooding introspection, like a half-remembered dream. Curator: The forms feel…fragmented. I think he's playing with the idea of memory, how it’s never quite whole, always these shattered glimpses of things past. Editor: Absolutely. The recurring motif of the seated figure, or perhaps a crouching form, speaks to a universal posture of contemplation or even grief. Think of Rodin's "Thinker," but stripped bare, raw. Curator: I wonder what Prahran, the place in the title, meant to Walker. What personal significance did it hold for him to evoke such somber feelings? Editor: Perhaps it’s not so much about a specific place, but about place as a container for experiences, a stage upon which the dramas of the self are enacted. It resonates on that level. Curator: I’m left with this sense of unresolved tension. It’s beautiful, but deeply unsettling. Editor: Yes, and that’s often where truth resides, isn't it? In the unsettling spaces.