John Dahlsen

Environmental Art

Art which responds to our environment and to our global community, conveying the soul of things

through creativity.

Early Paintings

Early Works on Paper

Later Paintings

‘Occasionally an exhibition reminds us that the visual arts are first and foremost a struggle for liberty of thought and deed, they are not and never can be an industry. Good art can never be reduced to a minor form of luxury goods.

Artists can achieve completely unexpected insights into their work and into human experience as a whole. These revelations that life can be made anew is the essential goal of all art. They inevitably go far beyond the need to make a saleable product.’

David Bromfield, Review: of John Dahlsen’s paintings and drawings exhibition.

Assemblage Wall Works

C L O S E R L O O K - Turning the Tide Recycled items make artful social commentary. By John T. SpikePublished in the International Art Magazine 'Art & Antiques' Summer Edition 2004.

Artists can be compared to bees, American philosopher Buckminster Fuller has pointed out. A bee gathers nectar to make honey; yet what it’s really doing, one might say, is pollinating flowers. So artists often find that their actions have unexpected consequences.

John Dahlsen is a contemporary Australian artist whose wide-ranging interests lead him in many directions—from abstract painting to digital photography to sculptures in public squares. In his leisure time, Dahlsen enjoys strolling along the splendid sandy beaches near his home in Byron Bay. Unfortunately, even the virgin coasts of Australia are besmirched by picnic litter and soda cans washed up by the tide and on occasion, Dahlsen will pick these items up, as many of us would.

One day about a decade ago it struck him just how much brightly colored junk was lying about in plain sight. The shore and dunes were sparkling with pieces of red, blue, black, white and clear plastic. In a gesture that initially seemed futile, Dahlsen started filling sacks with refuse and bringing them home to sort. Most of the bottle tops, children’s combs, bubble pipes, hair clips and innumerable other broken and sundry bits of plastic turned out to be dyed in the same few colors. Soon his rubbish bins were over- flowing with colorful assemblages of objects that were indistinguishable except for their shapes. Unified in this way, the beach debris seemed less ugly.

This made Dahlsen wonder if he could somehow make his pickings seem almost beautiful. Unlikely as it sounds, the answer turned out to be yes. Even back then, the idea of composing with “found objects” was neither radical nor new. Forerunners like Kurt Schwitters in the 1920s and Robert Rauschenberg in the ’60s used ticket stubs and auto parts for much the same reason that the Old Masters painted gold watches and sputtering candles: as signs of the ephemerality of life and our worldly possessions.

Dahlsen, by comparison, is an optimist. To begin with, he’s already made a positive statement by clearing off the unsightly stuff that is lethal to fish and fowl. (Australia’s wildlife conservancies adore Dahlsen’s work, which was hardly his intention, but so be it.) He wanted to impart a kind of Minimalist stability to his jumbles of deep true colors. One early assemblage of coffee lids, cooler fragments and bottle tops shared the ethereal white-on-white aura of a Robert Ryman abstraction or a William Bailey still life—only much more energetically. Piling up black combs, disposable razors and pieces of rope yielded a Louise Nevelson-like sculpture with attitude.

Beachcombers are always on the move, of course, and “Blue Rope (Triptych),” a new work, shows that Dahlsen has started to take the risk of mixing his colors. One would never suspect there could be anything “romantic” about a stratified miscellany of nylon ropes, plastic garbage bags and fish nets, but it is hard to avoid the impression that its undulations evoke a deep blue ocean and the tangled ropes are a little like storm tossed clouds. But it would be absurd to read anything into such a mishmash. Or would it? Besides, unlike Rauschenberg in pursuit of a decisive detail, Dahlsen likes to group his finds in categories and ask himself what it means that our age works in plastic, as opposed to stone, bronze or iron. Dahlsen, in other words, has become an artful archaeologist. •

John T. Spike is the director of the Florence International Biennial of Contemporary Art.

Totems

My work is in a constant state of evolution. I see this largely as alchemical. It is the process of nature’s elements redefining the man-made that creates the initial alchemy, taking the objects beyond the mundane. The second step is achieved through the transportation of these plastics to my studio and the process of sorting and assembling. A further and more vital transformation takes place as I assemble them. These found objects then start to tell their story and become transformed into artworks.

Most importantly for me, the assembled objects bring to life my commitment as an artist to express contemporary social, spiritual and environmental concerns. Comments are regularly made to me about people’s consciousness, while walking the beach, being awakened after seeing my found plastic object artworks.

The central concerns of my work are with contemporary art practice and working with found and recycled objects, most hand-picked by myself from somewhere along the Australian Coastline.

The unabated dumping of thousands of tonnes of plastics is expressed in my assemblages, installations, totems and prints. And yet, despite my outrage at this environmental vandalism, I return to the beach daily to find more pieces for my artist’s palette.

In an uncanny way, these plastics, as I sort them and arrange them in my studio take on an indefinable beauty, which fascinates me.

Driftwood Assemblage Works

My creative medium shifted from painting to working with found objects as a result of an artistic accident during the mid 1990’s.

I was collecting driftwood, on a remote Southern Australian Coastline and stumbled upon vast amounts of plastic ocean debris. This whole new palette of colour and shape revealing itself immediately affected me. I had never seen such hues and forms before. Since then, I have scoured Australian beaches for found objects, much of which I have found as washed up ‘ocean litter’ and have since discovered this litter is a worldwide phenomenon, affecting beaches on a global level.

I bring these plastics back to my studio to sort, and colour-code for my assemblages, sculptures and installations. As I work with these objects, I become even more fascinated by the way they have been modified and weathered by the ocean and the elements. I take these found objects, which might on first meeting have no apparent dialogue, and work with them until they tell their story, which includes underlying environmental messages.

Sculpture & Suspended Installations

Recycled Plastic BagWall Works

• I am with this work, apart from wishing to express obvious environmental messages, particularly interested in the brilliance of the colours and textures available to me in working with this medium. I am constantly surprised to see the variations in these plastics, very much like how I am intrigued by the beach found objects I have collected over the years.

• I imagine these plastic bags, which mostly have a lifespan of many years, are in fact on the verge of extinction, as it is only a matter of time before governments impose such strict deterrents to people using them that they become a thing of the past. A fitting end to what has become such a scourge to our environment on a worldwide scale.

A 2005 report by the Australian Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts noted the following:

In 2005, Australians used 3.92 billion lightweight single use high density polyethylene (HDPE) bags. 2.14 billion of these came from supermarkets, while the others were used by fast food restaurants, service stations, convenience stores and liquor stores and other shops.

Plastic bags are popular with consumers and retailers as they are a functional, lightweight, strong, cheap, and hygienic way to transport food and other products.

Most of these go to landfill (rubbish tips) after they are used, and some are recycled. In 2002 around 50 to 80 million bags ended up as litter in our environment. While the number littered has probably been reduced since then, it is likely that a large number still enter the environment. Once littered, plastic bags can find their way on to our streets, parks, and into our waterways.

Although plastic bags make up only a small percentage of all litter, the impact of these bags is nevertheless significant. Plastic bags create visual pollution problems and can have harmful effects on aquatic and terrestrial animals. Plastic bags are particularly noticeable components of the litter stream due to their size and can take a long time to fully break down.

The Australian Government is working with industry and the community to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags. However, everyone shares some responsibility for this problem - from plastic bag manufacturers and importers who sell the bags, shop keepers who give them away, and the customers who use them. It is up to all of us to help find the solution.

In recent years, many people have started to use reusable bags, such as the 'green bags' you can buy at most supermarkets. Because of these efforts, the number of HDPE bags used in Australia has fallen from around 6 billion in 2002 to 3.92 billion in 2005. However, there is a lot more that can be done.

Plastic bag facts* Australians used 3.92 billion plastic shopping bags per year.* Nearly half a million plastic bags are collected on Clean Up Australia Day each year. (source - CUA)* It takes only four grocery shopping trips for an average Australian family to accumulate 60 plastic shopping bags. (source - CUA)* Plastic bags are produced from polymers derived from petroleum. The amount of petroleum used to make a plastic bag would drive a car about 11 metres. (source - CUA)* In 2005, Australians used 192 HDPE bags per capita. (source - Nolan ITU)* 14% of HDPE plastic carry bags are returned to major supermarkets for recycling. (source - ANRA)

The Irish Government imposed a 10 cent levy on the use of these bags some years ago and saw the consumption of this product decrease by approximately 90% within a year, a reduction of many billions of plastic bags per year!Once again, I am able as a contemporary visual artist, to use these recycled materials, to create artworks which I hope, express a certain beauty as well as containing their own unique environmental messages.

This is my way of making a difference, and at the same time I’m sharing a positive message about beauty that can be gained from the aesthetic experience of appreciating art, as well as giving examples of how we can recycle and reuse in creative ways. These artworks exemplify my commitment as an artist to express contemporary social and environmental concerns.

Installations

Digital Prints

Public Artworks &Commissions

One of the central positions of my work is to create things of beauty.

Over the years I have chosen a challenging medium - discarded junk or recycled items - that have mostly been at some time in the process of being transformed by nature.

My role has been to transform it further, into a work of art that makes a strong statement while offering a positive aesthetic experience.

I get on this razors edge line between fulfilment and frustration, knowing that I am able to only ever provide through my creativity a glimpse of the vastness that is life - a fragment of what is essentially the ineffable.

John Dahlsen

The Recent Paintings: Sea and Landscapes

These paintings were made in 2007 and 2008 as a continued response to my local environment.I remember saying in interviews with the media during the late 90’s, that I hoped that one day I would see less and less litter washing up on our beaches, so that quite naturally my work would find a new direction. This has now happened – on a local level at least. The situation on a global level has worsened considerably.

After more than 10 years of collecting beach found objects and subsequently making art out of them, I’ve naturally come now to a new form of expression, which was brought on significantly as a result of the decrease in litter either washing up or being left behind on our beaches, as well as a result of my purge painting series and exploration.Painting the Byron Bay local seascapes and landscapes, mostly images seen by me on my daily walk around the lighthouse and beaches, are painted somewhat with a sense of urgency, due to my ever growing concerns about global warming and its impact.

The viewer can see these works have a certain unmistakable mood within each piece, which has been written about by Dr Jacqueline Millner from the University of Western Sydney, seen in the next slide:

“This play between abstraction and figuration, between synthetic/organic matter and immateriality in the purge paintings, has been applied in Dahlsen’s most recent works to landscapes — dark works whose subtle references to environmental degradation all but disappear before forcefully catching you unawares.This tension between inorganic abstraction and emotionally charged organism lends these works particular resonance, given their inception in the politics of environmental art. They play out, in elegant and economical aesthetics, the unstable boundaries between the natural and the artificial, reminding us of Wendell Berry’s paradox that ‘the only thing we have to preserve nature with is culture; the only thing we have to preserve wildness with is domesticity”

Steven Alderton in his Artspeak column in Australian newspaper, “The Northern Star”, went on to say about the new work: John has been working on a very successful new body of work that extends from his previous enviro sculptures into paintings. They are of the places he has collected detritus for his sculptures. The subject matter also happens to be Byron Bay, a place of infinite beauty and great affection.

2009 Driftwood Sculptures

John Dahlsen

John is based in Byron Bay Australia. His artistic training began at the Victorian College of the Arts and then later at the Melbourne College of Advanced Education.

He won Australia’s oldest art award, the prestigious Wynne prize, at the AGNSW in 2000 and was again a finalist in 2003 and 2004. In 2006 he was a finalist in the Sulman Award at the Art Gallery of NSW. He has won other significant acquisitive and non-acquisitive art awards, including a mixed media/new media award at the 2003 Florence Biennial.

As well as lecturing at various universities and schools from 1980 – 2008, He has been an invited speaker at architectural and environmental symposiums in Australia and Internationally, including at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC, which coincided with an exhibition of his work there in 1999.

For 28 years he has had regular solo and group exhibitions in Australia, in both commercial and regional galleries and Internationally, in USA and Europe, where he is also represented in major public and private collections. Galleries represent him in Australia, as well as in New York, Milan, Belgium and Amsterdam.

In August 2004, Dahlsen represented Australia at the Athens Olympics of Visual Arts and in October 2004, he became the first Australian artist, (he joins such renowned artists as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Francesco Clemente and Damien Hirst), to be commissioned by global vodka producer Absolut to create a major public artwork “Absolut Dahlsen” which was unveiled at Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney Australia in 2004.

John’s art has been written about in major Australian and International newspapers. His work has been featured in many magazines and in International Art publications. Television includes coverage on all Australian channels and many international programmes. He currently has a major presentation and interview on ABC online.He had a major solo exhibition of his work at the Tweed Regional Art Gallery in February 2005 and his sculpture “Pink Shard” made from fused toughened glass panels with a plastic interlayer bearing image won him another award, at the 2005 Thursday Plantation East Coast Sculpture Show.

Later in 2005, he curated as well as participated in an exhibition at the Samuel Dorsky Museum, in New York State in the USA; he also took up an artist in residence position in Jefferson City Missouri, USA in September 2005, where he made a public artwork for their sculpture walk. During June 2006, he had a solo exhibition at parliament house in Sydney.In December 2006, John was awarded the runner up prize in Australia’s newest, and now the richest art award, The Signature of Sydney Art Prize. In late November 2007 John’s work was exhibited in New York State in an exhibition titled “Ecological Integrity / On The Brink”In March 2008 John was an invited guest of the North Stonington Education Foundation, to work with students and to deliver a lecture at Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration Mystic Connecticut USA.John is represented by major public and private collections across Australia, he is also in many International collections in Europe, USA and Japan.

John was awarded in 2009, the Swell Sculpture Exhibition "Environmental Art Award", Currumbin, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia. He went on to win this prize again in September 2010.In July 2010, he won the Peoples Choice Award in the ArtsCape Biennial Sculpture Exhibition. Byron Bay, NSW Australia for his 6m x 4m x 3m sculpture: “Monumental Environmental Artwork” which he made from a recycled Camphor Laurel tree root ball and trunk. In September 2010 John's work featured at the famed "Hanmo Gallery" in Beijing's 798 contemporary art district in China.

March 2011 saw John being commissioned by the Commonwealth Bank to create a major sculpture for their new HQ, from objects collected from the annual Clean up Australia campaign in Sydney.

John was appointed " Cultural Ambassador" for Friends of the United Nations, on He was invited in 2012 by the United Nations to write an essay for the Rio+20 conference. Dahlsen’s essay, titled “The Future we want” appears on the UN website for the Rio+20 conference. And can be seen here: http://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/dahlsen.shtml In 2013 John was offered a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD Candidature) at the Charles Darwin University N.T. Australia.