JOHN WILL

BIO

John Will was born in Waterloo, Iowa in 1939. He was educated at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls (BA) and the University of Iowa, Iowa City (MFA). He studied at the Rijsakademie, Amsterdam from 1964-1965 on a Fulbright Fellowship, and attended the Tamarind Institute as a Ford Foundation Printer-Fellow from 1969-1971. Will moved to Calgary, Alberta in 1971 where he continues to play an active role as a practicing artist, Board Member of Stride Gallery and is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary. Will’s work is represented in numerous private and public collections throughout North America. Since 1962 his work has been featured in well over 100 solo and group exhibitions both in Canada and abroad. A highly individual and experimental artist, Will deals primarily with issues of mortality, death, politics, religion and spiritual enlightenment. His autobiographical art combines political satire and commentary on popular culture with a playful, often biting, sense of humour. His extensive travels inform the themes and images of his work.

STATEMENT

“The philosopher Allan Watts disagrees with Parmenides’s Latin adage Ex nihilo nihil fit (out of nothing comes nothing). I don’t. My recent work is an attempt to make art that is about nothing. I am finding it a difficult assignment but I still try. Big minds have groped with nothingness: Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Aristotle, Russell, Van Inwagen, Spinoza, Yogiraj Siddhanath, Bergson, Pascal, Rodiquez-Peryra, Chris Cran—oh, the list goes on and on. I have read them all and I only understand 10% of it...but 10% of nothing is still nothing. According to Heidegger, we shy away from the significance of nothingness because of the nothingness of death, the groundlessness of human existence. Others would suggest that this is why we try to rescue meaningfulness from hopelessness but Heidegger denies us this solace in that he lectures that freedom is rooted in nothingness. I would like to be free, but when I make a painting about nothing, it implies that nothingness is something and I become a dog chasing its tail, but I keep trying. My past work tried to be pertinent but was probably about as relevant as a wart on a witch’s you-know-what, and this, combined with the recent downturn in the economy, is why my inventory is so huge. As a result, I don’t start new work but rather “recycle” my old work in such a way that any intentional or perceived meaning is erased.”