Brittany: The content of your work seems to be a snapshot of the few pinnacle moments before a climatic out burst. This creates an undeniable tension for the viewer as they stare at the work almost anticipating the crack of a gunshot, the shouts from couple’s escalated argument, or the sound of a fist connecting with tense flesh. This mesmeric apprehension is only furthered by the apathetic composure of the individuals captured within the scene. My question for you is why do you depict these intense and largely intimate settings with the figures maintaining a somewhat indifferent pose?
John: I think the main think about painting is that it is concrete – you have to give the viewer all the information at one time. Unlike most time based art forms – film, music, theatre, literature – you can’t withhold information and deliver it in increments as work moves forward, everything has to happen at the very beginning. As a result while painting is not great at depicting motion or movement, it’s strength is presenting a dramatic moment that leads the viewer to anticipate activity – ultimately, there is an atmosphere that a painting needs to create that will carry the viewer along and engage them over time. As far the intimate settings – I’m just trying to tell stories that take place in the world I live in – let’s face it – most people don’t live their lives on a grand stage. I think that’s why I needed the intimate pictures to go along with the boxing paintings in “Man’s Adventure.”
Brittany: Your works seem to carry heavy nostalgic undertones that reverberate from iconic American landscapes or pastimes. However, instead of portraying brassy smiles and wholesome fun, it appears as if you show the seedy or despairing side to these environments. Obviously this aspect creates emotionally charged pieces that make you stand out from your contemporaries especially with you rendering your works in a more traditional and painterly manner. I’m curious, why do you choose to portray this subject matter from these viewpoints?
John: The short answer is that I’m a painter and if you’re a painter you paint. Ultimately I think every artist has to find a way to engage himself with the world. For me it’s painting. G.K. Chesterton, the catholic writer and critic wrote,“…In the back of every artist’s mind something like a pattern or a type of architecture. The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery. It is a thing like the landscape of his dreams; the sort of world he would like to make or in which he would wish to wander.”
Brittany: Following along the theme of nostalgia, is this an influence for you to create some of works with a predominately sepia tone or black and white palette?
John: I pick colors that create a kind of emotional atmosphere. There is a warmth in the sepia tones which lends a certain atmosphere to those drawings. In “Man’s Adventure” I intersperse black and white paintings with color paintings. I was initially concerned that the color painting would dominate the wall so I decided to limit my palette – using five colors; white, black, yellow ochre, cadmium red, and ultramarine blue. The result is that the strong value contrast in the boxing pictures stands out and the intimate color paintings sit back creating separate viewing distances for the two types of pieces. All the works, both the drawings and paintings, have to do with memory and as a result I think I use color to support that idea of things remembered. If you look at my baseball paintings Ivar has – the palette for those is completely different from this work and as a result the meaning of those paintings is altogether different.
Brittany: Your smaller works have been metaphorically describes as short poems, they can stand-alone but they all interact under the same umbrella. Do you feel this statement to be true? In addition to this, what is your strong connection to creating a number of smaller works and assembling them into as narratives?
John: Assembling small works to create narratives is an idea I’ve been increasingly interested in. I’ve always been a narrative painter and for the most part I’ve dealt with the idea of a “still” – an image that encodes the meaning of a greater work. I don’t know. I’ve always worked cyclically, creating series of paintings. More recently I’ve looked for ways to combine pictures – linearly or in grid form to create a more extended narrative idea. It seems to me this new work is to some extent a logical extension of my serial work but I’m still thinking about it.
Brittany: When I was looking over you résumé I noted that you had gone to Yale and had received an English degree. With your writing background, do you feel as though you are inspired by stories then create visual works in response to them, or do you create narratives loosely based off personal experiences/ and or/ literature and then let a story evolve during the process of creating works?
John: Well, I think I’ve always been a storyteller or a liar if you prefer. What I found, however, is that as a writer I tend to be pretty didactic and as a result my writing can be a bit limited. I’ve found with painting I can be as didactic as a I want to be and the image remains mysterious and sensuous and ultimately meaningful in ways that interest me. As far as borrowing from literary sources goes – it seems to me that if I can do something different than what the writer did then it’s a worthwhile activity. I also borrow constantly from painting and films and probably would from music except music is completely abstract. Painting is a cultural activity. It’s not created in a vacuum. I make use of whatever interests me in the world.
Brittany: Is there any particular reason why you choose to execute your works in acrylic (the reason that I ask is because I feel close connections to traditional styles in your pieces, but your works seems to contrast these "classic" painting techniques due to the acrylic medium used)?
John: I started out as an oil painter and worked in oil for at least my first 4 or 5 years as a painter. After my first year of graduate school I was really discouraged with my work. I felt like I wasn’t making the kind of pictures I wanted to make. I decided I needed to really learn how to paint – you know, go back to the basics – paint something simple like a landscape. Anyhow, as part of this project I decided that I should change my paint as well – figuring it would be easier to transport my paintings to and from the field if they were dry, I switched to acrylic. I just painted landscapes everyday for about 7 or 8 months – going out everyday – if it was raining I’d paint in my car. Anyhow, one day I was sitting around my studio and I was looking at one of my landscapes and I started thinking about what it would be like to put figures into it. Anyhow, I started putting figures into it and changed it into a night scene and that was the first painting that I made that was my painting instead of a student work or something that relied heavily on someone else’s work. In any case, I never went back to oil. I’m not really big on planning – you know how Ingres plans out everything in a drawing or study before he paints it – I’m not like that. I have some idea that I’m going after that comes from drawing but when I’m on the painting I’m searching for a meaning – one that I haven’t planned on – one that I’m trying to find. Sometimes I find it and sometimes I don’t but basically I need to be able to move figures around a lot and if you try that with oil it will screw up your color.
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