John Wolseley 
Termitaria: Indwelling I – Interior of an Arnhem land termite mound with fungus gardens, nursery galleries and the royal cell
2020 - 21
woodcut, linocut, etching, graphite frottage and watercolour on cotton, Mino washi and Gampi paper
H 204.5 x L 180.5 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

Currently on display in Essays on Earth, a collaborative exhibition between multidisciplinary artist Brodie Ellis, painter and printmaker John Wolseley and poet Paul Kane, uniting the work of three leading artists of the Bendigo region.

"This work was made in 2019 when I was researching the magnetic termite mounds of East Arnhem land. I have tried to reveal what happens in the different spaces and compartments of these amazing architectural masterpieces. I've drawn the fungus gardens, and the nursery galleries and described the Royal cell where lives the Queen. The design of these vertical termite mounds incorporates various systems of ventilation and the circulation of air. I was able to study these when looking at a giant mound which had fallen over on the savannah plains. I could draw the collapsed shafts and chimneys of these ventilation systems, whose principles of fluid mechanics were elucidated long ago by Archimedes, and which have been incorporated into buildings by some of the world’s great architects. 

This baroque art work is composed of different layers of collaged paper - woodcuts, linocuts and watercolour. The under layer is a large linocut which is a schematic drawing of a section of a large termite mound. Within this drawing I have conflated various diagrammatic representations of the inner workings of termitaria which I have pinched from scientific journals. I inked up one vertical plank of huon pine, and another slab cut from  the trunk of a 1800 year old King billy pine and then printed them on to big sheets of Gampi paper.

I like the way that the vertical slab growing upwards represents the accretion of growth through time, while the circular cross section of the tree trunk images cyclic time. Thus these two modes of understanding time could embody as Stephen Jay Gould put it – ‘the deepest and oldest themes in Western thought about the central subject of time: linear and circular visions, or time’s arrow and time’s cycle." – John Wolseley.

John Wolseley 
Termitaria: Indwelling II – The eusocial life of arboreal termite nests with pardalotes and golden shouldered parrots
2020 –21
woodcut, linocut, etching, graphite frottage and watercolour on cotton, Mino washi and Gampi paper
H 205 x L 100 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

"In 2019, when looking for plants near Gangan (East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory) with my late Yapa (sister) Mulkun Wirrpanda, I found a huge termite mound which had collapsed, revealing what looked like a ruined city with all its halls, galleries and linking passageways exposed. I could see the nursery apartments, the fungus gardens, and even what could have been the royal cell where the queen had lived with her diminutive king. 

As I looked down on this collapsed ‘termitaria’ I was amazed to find evidence of what Yapa had told me – of how various insects , birds and other creatures living in these mounds in a naturally beneficial way. I could see feathers of djutuduman quivering in the wind. This is the striated pardalote, the small bird who choose these mounds as a favoured nesting site. Later, I was also to discover that there was a symbiotic relationship between a moth (trisyntopa sp), the golden – shouldered parrot, and termites." – John Wolseley.

John Wolseley 
Termitaria: Indwelling III – Tree wood termite mound with forest kingfisher
2020 –21
woodcut, linocut, etching, graphite frottage and watercolour on cotton, Mino washi and Gampi paper
H 205 x L 100 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

"Here is a nest within the trunk of a dead tree. The inside of the tunnel which the kingfisher had made was smooth- termites having scrupulously closed all openings exposed by the birds. Nearby I found a king fisher lying dead with a broken neck exactly where, as it says in the text books, it had charged beak first into an arboreal termite mound to make an opening for its nest.  There was already another nest hole in the mound and within it I found some kingfisher feathers and a small moth similar to the one which co-habits with golden shouldered parrots." - John Wolseley.

​
Click the button below to find out more about the Termitaria series when it was exhibited at The National, Museum of Contemporary Art in March 2021.

Essays on Earth.
Brodie Ellis, Paul Kane and John Wolseley. 
9 September 2023 - 14 January 2024.
Click here to visit the exhibition page.