Dr John Walter
Dr John Walter is an artist and Lecturer in Fine Art at Cambridge School of Art. His practice moves between painting, drawing, installation, performance, publishing and digital technologies, often through collaborations with scientists, architects and other artists. His research explores how images, materials and cultural forms transmit knowledge, with particular interests in virology, memes, artificial intelligence, tarot and the social life of painting.
- Faculty:
- Faculty of Arts, Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
- School:
- Cambridge School of Art
- Location:
- Cambridge
- Areas of Expertise:
- Artificial Intelligence , Arts and creative industries , Arts and health research , Built environment , Fine art , Illustration, drawing and book art , Knowledge transfer , Modern and Contemporary Art , Printmaking , Sustainability , Video , Visual Culture
- Background
John studied Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, where he was awarded a first-class BFA, followed by an MFA in Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. He completed a PhD in Architecture at the University of Westminster, examining how art and design can communicate ongoing HIV transmission. He was Sainsbury Scholar at the British School at Rome from 2006–08 and has undertaken residencies including Skowhegan, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Kavli Institute of Nanosciences Delft and the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at UCSF.
His career combines studio practice, teaching, curating and research. He has exhibited internationally and has worked collaboratively across art, architecture and science. Major projects include ‘Alien Sex Club’, ‘CAPSID’ and ‘Shonky: The Aesthetics of Awkwardness’. He has taught at institutions including the Royal College of Art, The Architectural Association School of Architecture, The Slade School of Fine Art and The University of Westminster and is an External Examiner in Fine Art at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
- Research interests
-
- Contemporary painting and expanded painting practice
- Art-science collaboration and transdisciplinary artistic research
- Cultural transmission: memes and skeuomorphs
- Death and dying, and hospice architecture
- HIV
- Virology, cultural transmission and memes
- Artificial intelligence, tarot and digital technologies
- Skeuomorphism and the aesthetics of awkwardness
John's research treats painting and drawing as thinking technologies rather than simply media. His practice investigates how knowledge moves through materials, images and cultural forms, with particular interests in virology, cultural transmission, memes, artificial intelligence, tarot, skeuomorphism and the aesthetics of awkwardness. He works across studio practice, art-science collaboration, architecture, performance, publishing and digital technologies, using interdisciplinary and often deliberately provisional methods to test how images and ideas are made, circulated and transformed.
- Teaching
-
John currently teaches on the following modules:
- Approaches to Drawing
- Qualifications
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- PhD in Architecture
- MFA Painting
- BFA (Hons) Fine Art
- BTEC Foundation
- Memberships, editorial boards
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- AXIS
- Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange
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- The Eaton Fund, 2025
- Arts Council England, Developing Your Creative Practice, 2024 – Reframing My Practice Within a Discourse of Material Renewal
- Arts Council England, Developing Your Creative Practice, 2019 – Möbius Hospice
- Wellcome Trust Large Arts Award, 2016 – CAPSID
- Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts, 2016 – CAPSID
- Wellcome Trust Small Arts Award, 2014 – Alien Sex Club
- Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts, 2014 – Alien Sex Club
- Selected recent publications
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Walter, J. (2026) ‘The Creative Potential of Archival Boundaries’. Drawing Matter.
Luna, A. and Walter, J. (2026) ‘Disruptive Painting’, in Lloyd, G. and Williams, S. (eds.) Disruptive Painting. Bibliotheque McLean.
Walter, J. (2024) ‘Stochastic Painting’, in Painting (noun, verb). Kingsgate Workshops, London.
Walter, J. (2019) ‘The Flying Roll, a Memetic History of Jezreel’s Tower’, Whitstable Biennale Journal.
Walter, J. (ed.) (2017) Shonky: The Aesthetics of Awkwardness. London: Hayward Publishing.
- Recent presentations and conferences
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Walter, J. (2026) ‘Stochastic Divination: Tarot, AI, and Probabilistic Meaning’. Tarot Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Walter, J. (2026) ‘Jumping Species: The Evolutionary Advantage of the Skeuomorph’. The Practice of Skeuomorphism, Nordic TAG.
Walter, J. (2026) ‘The School of Meme Engineering: Mentoring, Margins and AI’. Anatomy of an Art School, Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen.
Walter, J. (2025) ‘The Cicada and the Skeuomorph: Dormancy and Revival as Survival Strategies in Painting’. Crisis/Death/Resurrection; a Painting Symposium, MTU, Cork.
Walter, J. (2024) ‘Evolution of the Artistic Canon: A Meme’s Eye Perspective’. Stretching the Canon Conference, Whitworth, Manchester.
- Media experience
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BBC Newshour, discussion of ‘Tarot – Origins and Afterlives’, 2025.
BBC Radio 4 Front Row, discussion about viruses in art, 2018.
BBC Radio 4 Front Row, discussion of artists as curators, 2017.
The Art Newspaper, interview about Alien Sex Club and Lockdown Tarot, 2020.
Creative Review, interview about colour and John Walter’s practice, 2018.
STV News, interview about John Walter’s virus-related exhibition, 2020.