About the Artist
It was from the youngest of ages that John's fascination with imagery was sparked. Some of his earliest nostalgias include copying comic books for friends and reproducing pictures of sailboats from encyclopedias. Being born amongst the rural prairies of Nebraska in 1948, it wasn't until John was moved to Southern California at the age of fourteen that he was able to see first-hand a sailboat in the ocean and a surfer gliding across a wave, moments that would ultimately prove one of the most formative and defining in his life and artistic style.
High school years at Camarillo Adolfo High afforded the beginning of what can be called his early formal training with a drafting class that instilled the fundamentals of shaping and perspective. At the age of 19 John was drafted into service during the Vietnam conflict and his formal training was put on hold, but the personal development of his gift never relinquished. Art and images had always been a therapeutic release, and in the jungles of Vietnam the turmoil and tragedy of war was released in pencil sketches and it is here that his work took on the emotional honesty and expressiveness that continue to be exuded on his canvases today.
After Vietnam John took his art training to Ventura College and Santa Barbara City College where he enrolled in every available drawing, life drawing, painting, ceramic and design class. It was also during this time that John enjoyed the mentorship of Carlisle Cooper, a figurative painter who explored the human condition as it concerns man's relationship to truth. Carlisle Cooper's intoxicating use of color and distinctive use of light and shadow significantly influenced and informed John's art in his early years. As John grew older and the world changed around him, his art has remained constant.
Today John's work is primarily inspired by maritime images and the cultural landmarks of his home of 52 years, Ventura California. He works off his own photographs and is a fixture on the shores of Ventura's surf spots when the swells hit. Not one for pigeonholes, John's pieces range from impressionistic watercolors, to realistic oil paintings; from subtle jewelry pieces and assemblages to large mixed media abstracts. But no matter the genre, John incorporates his style and coloring into all his pieces, a style that is as uniquely his own as is the way he interacts with the people and places around him.
To know John's art is to know him. John's family and friends fill their walls with his pieces, striving to reproduce a surrounding of tranquility and depth that is reflective in his art.