When John Dahlsen, the Byron-based environmental artist, comes home from Darwin to appear at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival in two weeks time, it will be to talk about not just one, but two books, he tells Verandah Magazine publisher Candida Baker.
One of the most important aspects of maturing as an artist, says environmental artist John Dahlsen, is the desire to give back to the artistic community – hence his most recent books: An Artist’s Guide to a Successful Career – Strategies for Financial and Critical Success, and his autobiographical book, An Accidental Environmental Artist.
“It was the desire to give back that really prompted me to write the books,” he says. That, and the fact that he felt there was a lack in the market for books that could actually help would-be artists, or even practicing artists, see their lives holistically.
Dahlsen, who has lived in Byron Bay with his wife Rago for the past 20 years, finds it bemusing that ‘life’ and ‘art’ are often separated during the teaching process. “The fact of the matter is that if you are an artist, then that is your life,” he says. “Often, too, it’s true that some artists feel that just because they’re artists, being successful isn’t going to be easy, and part of my Artist’s Guide is to really look at that and break it down so people can examine where that self-doubt comes from.”
Originally from Victoria, Dahlsen studied art at the Victorian College of the Arts, and his career has been a stellar one. He won the prestigious Wynne prize in 2000, and was a finalist in 2003 and 2004; he has held numerous solo exhibitions, nationally and internationally, including in Milan and New York, and he has lectured, taught and spoken at numerous universities, colleges, symposiums and conferences in Australia and around the world on the subject of environmental art.
“It’s odd, because I actually fell into environmental art quite accidentally,” he tells me on the phone from Charles Darwin University where is he currently completing a PhD. “It was in the middle of the 1990’s, and I was collecting driftwood because I wanted to make some furniture out of what I found on the beach. I was visiting some very remote Victorian beaches, and I was staggered to find that they were full of plastic debris.” Compelled to pick it up – with the intention of dumping it – Dahlsen became intrigued with the colour and form of the rubbish which included everything from rope and string, to thongs, buoys, bottles and dozens of bottle tops.
John Dahlsen: Monumental Environmental Artwork (Byron Bay) Camphor Laurel rootball and trunk, (2008-2010) organic oil, beeswax and concrete plints. 4.15 metres high and 5.80 metres long.
“I’d fully intended taking the rubbish to the tip,” he says, “but I became so fascinated with it I took it all back to my studio and spread it out around me. At first I was looking at it as a painter would – having been one for so many years, but gradually, I realised that the objects themselves were the art works, and that guided me towards a whole new career as an environmental artist.”
In Byron Bay Dahlsen found a space in which he could express his environmental concern through his art, connect to his local community, and still take his work into an international market. But, he says, he wasn’t immune to the downturn in the art market after the GFC. “I think the GFC really hit small regional towns the hardest,” he says, “and I wasn’t – despite all my positive beliefs – resistant to the notion that everything was going to shit! I sat down and felt really sorry for myself for a while, and then both Rago and I decided that the best possible thing I could do both professionally and personally would be to get out of the Byron Bubble – as it’s known – and head off on a road trip with no particular plan or destination in mind.”
The couple set off for the Adelaide Hills to visit Dahlsen’s stepfather and sister, when a chance remark by Dahlsen’s brother-in-law got him thinking. “He asked me if I’d thought of going up to Darwin – which I hadn’t, but Rago and I talked about it, and thought why not? We were on a road trip after all – and it was just a three day drive up the road!”
John Dahlsen: Thong Totems, winner of the 2000 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of NSW.
What happened next was an illustration of that strange moment when fate and synchronicity come together. “Some friends in Darwin put us up,” Dahlsen recalls, “and I thought I might go to the Uni to see if there was any casual lecturing. It just so happened I met the Dean of the Arts School, and we got chatting – he mentioned that I might have the perfect fodder for a PhD with my two manuscripts, and that set in train us moving up here.”
A few years in, and after a highly successful artistic stint travelling to Japan on a Churchill Fellowship, Dahlsen is now lecturing in Creative Practice, and, as he says: “all my artistic knowledge is suddenly coming into play. It was a very interesting process for me to see that I needed to practice what I preached in my books. You have to give into the creative process and let it become what it needs to become. If you stay too safe then your art practice goes stale, but be open to moving, and all sorts of opportunities open up.”
John Dahlsen: “It’s imortant not to let fear and insecurity show.”
Not that there hasn’t had to be some adjustment. “The weather’s pretty extreme if you’re not acclimatized,” says Dahlsen, “but you just work around it – I finish my exercise by 8.00 to get out of the heat, and after a while you adjust.”
An unlooked for bonus of the move is Darwin’s accessibility to South-East Asia. “It’s been great travelling to China and Japan and being able to access Asia so easily – I’ve travelled more in the past three years than I have in the whole of my life,” he says. Most importantly though, has been finding that he does have, as he wanted to have, something important to contribute. “Not only has my personal arts practice been thriving up here,” he says, “but I’ve been able to mentor and advise younger artists, and to see them getting really concrete advice and support from my book.”
So for the time being a perfect mix of life and work?
“Absolutely,” he says. “And next time I feel like complaining we’ll just head off on a road trip again.”
John Dahlsen will be talking with previous Byron Bay Festival Director Jeni Caffin on Saturday August 8, at 9.40 am.
You can find out more about his work here: johndahlsen
To purchase ‘An Artist’s guide to a Successful Career’ go to: johndahlsen.com/blog
To purchase ‘An Accidental Environmental Artist’ go to: johndahlsen.com/blog/products
