'Over the last 10 years, Ian Walton has consistently produced work of rare aesthetic resonance and poetic depth that stands out proud from that of so many of his contemporaries, who too often and too easily resort to the technical quick-fix and the conceptual one-liner.He conjures melancholic depths out of the most humble of materials: roofing felt, wax, bitumen, nails, potting compost, slate, ashes, surgical wadding, hemp, dust. While his general mood is somewhat dark, it is far from heavy. Walton's work deserves to be described by that currently overused term, sublime.
At his best, he achieves what many today would consider to be way beyond the reach of post-modernist art: a convincing and moving embodiment of the multi-layered tragic-comic textures of a life's experience.'