`Walker's engravings are distanced from the twentieth-century English tradition exemplified by Gill and Gillings: for example, he often uses a dentist's drill to rout out deep grooves. This is not an inconsequential labour-saving technique: it gives the images more of a folk-art feel and dramatizes his symbolic and often surreal compositions.'
(Paul Razzell
Parenthesis )
`George Walker is one of the most unusual wood engravers in the country, and works in a distinctly contemporary idiom. Using a dentist's drill, he routs out deep grooves which create bold graphic white lines, providing a brilliant black-white contrast.'
(Patricia Ainslie
Glenbow Museum )
`Why this cultured man who values history and says ``the best training ... is to be had by looking at the work of other artists'' does not bring this sensitivity to extending his own art, but is content to remain in a Looney Tunes world, remains one of life's smaller mysteries. The world of wood engraving is undoubtedly extended by the presence within it of such a serious, self-defined, if self-limiting, clown; and this collection which shows a sufficient range of his work to let you see what he is about is very welcome.'
(Simon Brett
Multiples )
`This is a lively book by a very lively artist and wood engraver.'
(Bill Poole
Pica )
`The greatest compliment I can pay it is, there is not a dull spot in the book. He can present us with humour without a hint of them being cartoons. I think he must have fun doing these prints. It is a good example of drawing straight to the point, and not fussing with a lot of extra stuff. These drawings wiggle and dance in space. They are small in scale, but each is huge in heart. They look like they are chiseled out of rock. I've had this book laying around, and when a visitor picks it up, I hear exclamations of surprise and awe.'
(James Horton
Block & Burin )
`There's not a lot of text in this book: commentary on each of the 70+ featured images, plus a little about Walker's life and manner of working. That helps explain why his work is so little-known. Much of it has gone into handcrafted books of which only one or two hundred were ever printed, and into collections that rarely circulate outside the printmaking community. Even though the uniqueness of each impression is lost in reproducing the works for a wider audience, I'm very glad that he has made it available in this lovely edition. It's fascinating work, sure to be welcome in any library on prints and printmaking.'
(wiredwierd
amazon.com )
`Walker is an artist of many talents and media -- and many contradictions. A figurative artist, he is interested in illuminating abstractions cast up from his unconscious. Literate and articulate, he expresses complex thoughts and ideas in singular images. He published a book without text, letting the images carry the narrative. A generous nature can give way suddenly to a disquisition on social inequality that he also translates into the grammar of picture making. There is a startling muteness and directness to his pictures, yet they are intended to effect change, often in the immediate world around him, or in the viewer's perceptions of the world around them. The technical dimension of his artistic practice is privileged and apparent in the work, yet the art far exceeds material, method and process. His art is often grounded in the process of automatism, allowing for the unconscious to speak directly and spontaneously in images, even as his technique embraces the painstaking and precise nomenclature of wood engraving, block printing and bookbinding. The immediacy of his messages and their meanings are the product of careful rendering, circumspection and consideration.'
(Tom Smart
Devil's Artisan )
