John Whall's Reminders and Inspiration Points

In this studio tour, John Whall invites us into the space where he makes his work, sharing ideas and processes that inspire his practice.

"Hello, my name is John Wall. I'm a digital artist working in Derbyshire, and welcome to my studio come office. As you can see, this is quite a small space, and it's effectively a home office that I moved into during the pandemic, working from home, and then it's become my artistic space since. 

I was very fortunate, just towards the end of the pandemic, to receive a DYCP from Arts Council, and that has helped me grow this space as well as grow my practice. It did allow me to invest in some equipment, so I got a good working graphics laptop there. As you can see, there's more than that, and I've tried to invest in technology and equipment that I need for my work over time. So, one of my most recent purchases was this monitor.
 

Very thankful for the bursary from Axis Web that allowed me to get that monitor. I also invested in a high-end gaming PC, just because I found that the laptop wasn't enough of what I needed it to be. And I'm a firm believer in investing in what I need over time to get the most out of my practice. So you've got to, what's the phrase? You've got to speculate to accumulate, or accumulate to speculate, whichever way round.

And I do find that's true, because without that machine, I wouldn't be able to be working on my current project, which is just in front of you here, called Make Land, which is a celebration of Derbyshire maker heritage through virtual reality.

You can see here, I'm in a game engine, working away, and working over here as well. I'm very grateful for the bursary to buy the second monitor, because I like being able to see what I'm doing with the different elements of what I'm working with. And so this has really helped.

These chairs you see are actually from local makers called Fullgrown, who grow furniture in a very caring, environmentally sustainable kind of way. So they're part of that project. But enough about that project, because you're here to see my studio space. And as you can see, there's not a lot to it.

There is my inspiration wall here. And when I'm starting off a project, this kind of becomes like a whole wall mood board. But right now, it's just got some reminders and inspiration points for me.

So, we've got Daniel Lind-Ramos' exhibition that was at Nottingham Contemporary last year, and Donald Locke's "Resistant Forms." And these are two Black artists that have inspired me lately for a number of different reasons.

One is Daniel's work, he kind of pulls together physical objects to create these godlike structures, and it's very reminiscent of a technique in 3D work called kit bashing, where you're taking pieces of models and putting them together to create something new. So I'm very inspired by that and seeing where I can take that and use that as inspiration.

And Donald Locke, and working in digital 3D, I quite like work in physical 3D. So "Resistant Forms" I think is a collective of a lot of Donald Locke's previous works. And it does delve into Black slavery and bondage and the history there, which is also inspiring some of my current thinking, especially being in Derbyshire and linked to the cotton industry and the Industrial Revolution.

There's some text here as well. One is Art Derbyshire's manifesto. I am currently working with Art Derbyshire, but that's not why that's here. That's here because I really like the words that are coming out here, and even though this is not my manifesto, it's always important to me to be reminded of some of the values and some of the things that I work under, and a lot of that is in here. So that's always a good reminder for me.

And then, "The Man in the Arena," Theodore Roosevelt, which I came across last year for the first time, and it talks about trying and failing, and if you're not going to try because you fear failing, nobody's going to try for you. And so that's something that's really sticking with me, because this is really, for me, a space where I try and fail a lot. And while I don't trial and fail with physical material, digital material can also be sometimes a bit more unforgiving. And so, that is there to remind me.

And while most of this set-up I realize is a kind of PC gamer's dream space, I don't play games on it.

It's primarily for work, and it's become my space that I'm developing over time. But as you can see, working with virtual reality in a small space, I'm often hitting my hand against this wall, or if not, getting very close to my monitor, or banging my hands on my desk. So, one of the other things that I'm hoping to do with the bursary is to invest in a bigger studio space.

So hopefully, if I ever make one of these videos again, you will see a different space. But for now, I will leave that there. Hope you found this interesting. If anyone wants to reach out for me about any of what I've talked about, please do. And yeah, that's it for now. Thank you very much. "

John Whall, transcription from video 2026

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