Late at night is when I like to work. My best hours are between midnight and dawn. In the dark the responsibilities that tie me to the world slip away and I can enter into another world of my own making. Its a great time to paint

Are the images of the world that we see as children burnt into our subconscious, when our eyes are wide open to the newness of everything? I think so. When I was a kid I missed a lot of school and spent many of those hours watching old movies on a black and white television - horror films, science fictions, musicals, whatever was on in the afternoon. Now those monochrome other worlds seem to surface in the blue and white paintings, but all mixed up and jumbled like in a dream. Making an image that captures a sense of that other world is tricky. Lazy meanderings with the brush are a good way to start. I've developed a way of painting with thin paint, tweaked brushes and an unusual stroke that helps get a non-linear process going. Its a process where the imagery seems to spring forth from the brush, like a shortcut to the subconscious.
Late at night is when I like to work. My best hours are between midnight and dawn. In the dark the responsibilities that tie me to the world slip away and I can enter into another world of my own making. Its a great time to paint

Before becoming an artist there have been other jobs. I worked during high-school as a draftsman in a small building firm and later put myself through art college as a mannequin makeup artist. A lot of that stuff seems unrelated to what I do now, but I've noticed that repeated actions tend to mark the memory. Once I felt the need to have the date, the untitled number and a recipe code, in stiff lettering on the front of a painting. (I'm a inveterate record keeper and a big user of TLA's . I keep track of the how the paintings are made and code and number everything.) So I did it, and then later, after doing it for a while I recognized the impulse as an echo from the stacks of technical drawings I've done in the past. Sometimes more profound forces seem to work their way into the paintings. My father was a gardener and our yard was always full of plants and flowers. It was a world seething with life to an almost scary degree. There was always some bug or plant creeping from the soil. That fecund energy seems to have worked its way into my compositions. I'm never sure about these things but it seems possible and I'm content to leave it at that.

There's a wide range of people and things I feel the influence of. Suspension bridges, landscapes by J.M. Turner, paintjobs on funnycars, skyscraper drawings by Hugh Ferriss, chinoiserie, moon paintings by Chesley Bonestell, blue and white pottery, pinups by Alberto Vargas, botanical illustrations, the DIY technique of Henri Rousseau, airbrush illustrations of tools in old catalogues, the fantasies of John Martin, Chinese brush painting and children's books. I can quickly filter a lot of stuff through the question; 'is it interesting?' The music of Burt Bacharach confirms my belief that style can be profound. Old National Geographic magazines have been a rich source of inspiration. An article in one told of heavy water flowing down slopes at the bottom of the oceans, making rivers that cascade in total darkness over cliffs, no one to see the plumes of sediment rising in slow motion from these underwater Niagaras. Trying to imagine what that might look like makes me want to paint.

It's my intention to make paintings that ask 'what is that?, 'where is that?, who is that?, and when is this'? I delight in the unexplored and the excitement of discovery and I love it when it all works and the viewer feels it too.

Douglas Walker was born in Brockville, Ontario. He graduated with an Honors Diploma from the Ontario College of Art in 1981. He presently lives and works in Toronto.

During the 1980's Walker received early acclaim for his work in photo- drawing, photography, and sculpture. In the 1990's Douglas turned to painting and recently reduced his palette to the Blue and White for which he is now known for. Through these disparate media he has consistently articulated a finely wrought vision of the beautiful residing in the strange . Characteristic of his work is the provocation of dread and delight in the unfamiliar.

Considered a unique talent, Douglas stands apart from his contemporaries in his uncanny ability to make works of a compelling originality regardless of media.  Walker has exhibited his work at the ICA in London and the Dia foundation in New York. In Toronto he has shown at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Powerplant, YYZ, Mercer Union and at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. Walker has been the focus of a traveling mid-career retrospective curated by The Mendel Art gallery in Saskatoon and an overview of his career was featured at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art gallery. He has also shown at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography in Ottawa, Hallwalls in Buffalo, and the 49th Parallel in New York City. Many of these exhibitions were supported with publications.

Douglas’s work is included in many important public and private collections most notably the Art Gallery of Ontario, Mendel Art Gallery and Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. He has received awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council. Walkers work has captured extensive media and critical attention wherever he has exhibited. He is currently represented by the Jennifer Kostuik gallery in Vancouver and the Nicholas Metivier gallery in Toronto.

CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION
1977-81 Ontario College of Art

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2005 New Paintings, Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2003 Douglas Walker , Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver BC
2001 Douglas Walker, Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2000 Tableau Vivant, Toronto
1997 Pictures, Tableau Vivant, toronto
1991 Douglas Walker - A Future in Ruins, Mendel Art Gallery and Civic Conservatory, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Agnew Etherington art Centre, Kingston, Ontario
Art Gallery Of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario
Organized by the Mendel Art Gallery and Civic Conservatory
1988 Vitrines, S.L. Simpson Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
1986 Photography, S.L.Simpson Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
1986 Photodrawings, S.L.Simpson Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
1983 Douglas Walker, YYZ, Toronto, Ontario
1982 Section A - A America, Gallery 76, Toronto, Ontario

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2002 Group Show, Monte Clark Gallery, Toronto, ON
2000 Myth City Saga: Urban Landscapes and the Permanent Collection, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario
Landlakes, Edward Day Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
1999 Large Studies on Paper, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Ontario
1997 Roccoco Tattoo: The Ornamental Impulse in Toronto Art, The Power Plant, Toronto, Ontario
1999 Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Ontario
Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
The Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary, Alberta
Centre Cultural Universite de Sherbrooke, Quebec
MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Organized by the Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Ontario
1997 Mall Proteus, Garnet Press Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
1993 Andy Patton / Douglas Walker, Mercer Union, Toronto, Ontario
1992 Urban Inscriptions, Organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario:
The London Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario
The MacDonald Steward Art Centre, Guelph, Ontario
The Art Gallery of St. Thomas, Elgin, St. Thomas, Ontario
1992 Multiples, S.L. Simpson Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
1990 Perspective 90: Lee Dickson, Douglas Walker, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto,
Landscape, S.L. Simpson Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
Transpositions, A Public Exhibition of Contemporary Canadian Photography, Vancouver, British Columbia
Organized by Active ARTIFACTS Cultural Association, Vancouver Skytrain, Vancouver, British Columbia
1989 Compoundes, Lang & O'Hara, NYC, New York
1988 London Life Young Contemporaries,London Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario
1989 Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary, Alberta
Greater Victoria Art Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia
Concordia Art Gallery, Montreal, Quebec
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick
Mississauga Civic Centre Art Gallery, Mississauga, Ontario