In 2011, as part of their 50^th Birthday Celebration, the Hamilton Art Gallery in Victoria commissioned John Wolseley to design Fire and Water - Moths, Swamps and Lava Flows of the Hamilton Region.

Pivotal to Wolseley’s art practice are his sojourns into the Australian bush. Created in the painterly approach that is synonymous with his practice, the artist used lyrical mark-making and his eye for geographical detail to capture an enchanted and meaningful image, full of significant natural elements of the Hamilton area.

The original artwork was littered with observations, scribbled on the page margins, explaining the lovely butterflies and moths, as well as the lava flows and volcanic sink holes that characterise this area. Wolseley produced a revised design, created from reassembled sections of the original painting, for the weavers. In their interpretation, the weavers have drawn on both the original and revised design to produce a third design in tapestry. For them the challenge was to capture the fine details of pencil lines and the washes of translucent paint that made up Wolseley’s design. As the artist had not signed the original artwork, the weavers have taken a signature from another John Wolseley work within the ATW collection and have added it (through consultation with the artist) to the bottom right hand corner of the work.

John Wolseley is represented by Australian Galleries in Melbourne and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney.