A model of this essay initially appeared in Reframed, the Artwork in America e-newsletter about artwork that surprises us and works that get us labored up. Enroll right here to obtain it each Thursday.
One morning in 1958, whereas researching his ancestry within the English metropolis of Leeds, the Antiguan artist Frank Walter awoke to a disturbance. He seemed out his window and observed some aliens who appeared to glow. Reasonably than cowering in concern, he was awed by what he noticed.
It was hardly his solely encounter with realms past our world. Walter, who died in 2009, would go on to say to have been visited by a spectral King Charles II, and to have information that extraterrestrials had overrun his property in Dominica. It could be improper to romanticize such occasions—Walter was periodically institutionalized and was recognized with schizophrenia, for which he doesn’t appear to have taken any remedy—however it’s exhausting to not marvel on the work that stem from his visions.
MWG Milky Manner Galaxy (ca. 1994), one of many practically 200 works in Walter’s present survey at New York’s Drawing Heart, options an eye-like kind, its iris bisected by a spear whose tip is about inside a goal. This work, with its obscure symbols, recollects the work of Hilma af Klint, one other artist who gave kind to alternate universes. But the Drawing Heart present means that, not like af Klint, Walter channeled different worlds to flee his personal, which was haunted by racism and violence.
Set up view of “Frank Walter: To Seize a Soul,” 2024, on the Drawing Heart, New York.
Picture Daniel Terna
Walter was born in Liberta, Antigua, in 1924, and have become accustomed to loss of life from a younger age: earlier than he turned 18, his grandfather was murdered, and his mom died from tuberculosis. Walter was subsequently left within the care of his grandmother, who instructed him about his European heritage—successfully exhibiting him that his household lineage was formed by enslavement and colonialism. The remainder of Walter’s biography incorporates many particulars which are simply as grim: he was incarcerated greater than as soon as; he ran a plantation in Antigua, stoking mistrust from the Black group; and he was stripped of his property in Dominica, since he couldn’t produce authorized paperwork wanted to maintain it.
No shock, then, that Walter needed to go away behind his actuality. The Drawing Heart present options ephemera that he amassed, together with no scarcity of space-related supplies like a information clipping congratulating NASA for its missions and the again cowl of a ebook promising an “uncensored” have a look at UFOs. Seeing these supplies provides context to Walter’s work, the majority of which seem to characterize earthly landscapes seen in Antigua and Europe. Take Untitled (Crescent moon), an undated work (like most within the present) that incorporates a lunar slice abutting a black expanse. Curator Claire Gilman avers within the present’s catalog that this portray’s round format could deliberately recall the porthole of a seafaring vessel. May it additionally allude to the window of a rocket?
Frank Walter, MWG Milky Manner Galaxy, ca. 1994.
Picture Kenneth Milton/Courtesy the Walter Household
Different works evoke interplanetary journey much more explicitly. The Universe is Composed of 14 Galaxies, a diagram of kinds that Walter scrawled on musical manuscript paper, options 14 concentric rings, every full of cryptic textual content. The outermost ring incorporates the phrase “Cosmos shell”; the innermost options the phrases “ELECTRON FIELD.” A complete physique of labor on this present facilities round blazing suns. Sundown with Black Kinds incorporates a maroon orb that rises above darkish pillars, the contours of which recall a Martian society.
The Drawing Heart exhibition makes it clear that many artists nowadays are taking a look at works by Walter. Sundown with Black Kinds got here on mortgage from KAWS’s assortment. Glenn Ligon additionally lent a piece to the present, and per the catalog, Peter Doig is the proprietor of Walter works not on view.
In the meantime, Josh Smith is the topic of an accompanying Drawing Heart presentation pointedly paired with the Walter present. In his exhibition, Smith affords drawings of palm timber, fish, the Grim Reaper, and extra. The subject material could also be at odds with Walter’s, however Smith’s fast-paced drawing follow definitely mirrors Walter’s need to memorialize nearly each side of the world.
So, what makes Walter so intriguing to Smith and so many different artists? Take into account a comment by Smith within the catalog: “Drawing is a therapeutic luxurious.” Maybe Walter considered his follow equally, turning to stargazing as a way of coming to phrases with what was happening on the bottom beneath.