Walking the World: Wang Center Exhibit Features Gareth Fuller’s ‘Art of Place’

The intersection of art and exploration is where creative expression transforms physical journeys into shared human experience. This unique pairing allows creators to visualize the unknown while helping audiences connect with distant or abstract concepts.

Artist Gareth Fuller explores this exact intersection through highly detailed, hand-drawn map art and impressionistic “maps of the mind.” Fuller documents contemporary culture, history and urban existence by walking hundreds of miles through major cities before translating his lived experiences into intricate visual narratives.

The Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University hosted Fuller at the September 9 opening of Walking the World: Gareth Fuller’s Art of Place in the Skylight Gallery. In an intimate lecture, Fuller discussed his creative process through exploration and manual drawing, describing a fascination with exploration that began with his experience as a Boy Scout.

“Our scoutmaster would drive us into the middle of nowhere and say ‘See you in two hours,’” he said. “We’d have to get out and make our way back to the scout hub, and I loved it. It was a really great experience. That’s where I first learned to get lost and try and find my way home.”

Today, after decades of walking through cities and landscapes around the world, Fuller has transformed his journeys into richly detailed visual narratives. His works — blending documentary observation with personal reflection — reveal the hidden layers and subtle characteristics of places like London, Beijing, Pyongyang and Washington, D.C. More than maps, they are records of memory, history and human connection.

Describing himself as a “failed journalist,” Fuller told the audience of a job he had in a newsroom as a teenager that helped coalesce his interests. 

“I was studying to be a journalist, and I couldn’t sit still,” he said. “But I was inside this newsroom and I fell in love with culture and economics and politics. I’ve always been doing jobs that involve storytelling alongside my art. There was this love of exploration, but there was also this seeking and searching of truth, which I think many writers or journalists have.”

Fuller illustrated his approach by challenging the audience to describe what Stony Brook means to them.  

“It could be memories, it could be thoughts, it could be terrible things, and it could be great moments,” said Fuller. 

The responses ranged from historical connections to education, research and science. For one attendee, it meant the loss of the historic Mill Pond Dam, which collapsed in August 2024 after a torrential rainstorm.

“These thoughts are a fantastic thing because there’s almost an infinite amount of memories and ideas that belong to Stony Brook, to only the university and the village,” said Fuller. “I’ve never been here before. To me Stony Brook means Andrea Goldsmith and wi-fi. It means Paul Lauterbur and his work which led to the MRI. It means the Culper spy ring. It means Renaissance Technologies. It means the deer roaming the campus. It means the Jazz Loft. It means the local food. It means the damaged pond and the spectacular sunset I saw last night. All these things give it a sense of place that’s unique to me. I’ve got all these themes I can play around with. And that will tell a story.”

Fuller described his experience mapping Beijing, one of the works on display, in 2017-18.

“I needed to know how large Beijing was, and I was completely blown away,” he said. “I’d come from London, and here I was in a mega-city. So I decided to walk the rim road, which goes for a couple of hundred miles. I didn’t know which way to go, so I flipped a coin and headed south.” 

Fuller pointed out depictions of his experience in his map of Beijing, including a fall into a drainage channel, the blaring horn of a driver who had fallen asleep in his car with his head on the steering wheel, and the hotel he stayed at. 

“There’s a small depiction there of the Afghanistan flag and two hands shaking,” he said. “I met this chap when I was there, and we both had quite a few issues checking in to the hotel. We were just two random foreigners in a strange part of the city. We shared a room to save some cash. He was from Afghanistan, and he has a textile factory in Beijing. So I wanted to show that idea of randomness, meeting people, and friendship made there.”

An enthusiastic Q&A followed the lecture, as did a reception.

“We are surrounded by rapidly generated images and digitally mediated realities,” said Jinyoung Anna Jin, director of Asian Art and Culture at the Charles B. Wang Center. “Gareth Fuller’s work reaffirms the value of curiosity, craftsmanship and deep engagement with the world. This exhibition invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and rediscover the power of drawing as a way to understand the landscapes we inhabit.”

Walking the World: Gareth Fuller’s Art of Place will be on display in the Skylight Gallery until December 18, 2026.

— Robert Emproto

art Charles B. Wang Center Gareth Fuller Skylight Gallery