Walter Price

Walter Price mainly creates works on paper that carefully balance figuration with moments of pure abstraction. The colourful drawings and paintings have a filmic quality to them, with seemingly familiar scenes abstracted from concrete reality. The dreamlike compositions are filled with objects and figures that exist in isolation of each other in the space. Certain motifs reappear, including bathtubs, palm trees, cars and cowboy hats, all presented on bright fields of colour. Price has spoken of his experience as a Black artist in a predominantly white art world, expressing his desire to “dance with that whiteness” by formally incorporating the colour into his work.

The paintings combine references to contemporary American culture with the artist’s own memories of growing up in the South and his enlistment in the U.S. Navy. Price’s four years in the navy enabled him to pursue his art education through the G.I. Bill, which covers the cost of training and education for military veterans.

Price has spoken on his ongoing struggle with the ‘right’ way to make art. His works don’t evolve according to a consistent plan, instead, Price doodles and uses drawing as a space for experimentation. He also uses language in a similar way to figures and objects within the paintings – often concealed and fragmented, taken out of their original context, the words and phrases become formal elements of the paintings themselves.