Artist Statement: (The long version)
Painting a realistic landscape can be such an daunting task that any lack of proportion, any lack of accuracy and any lack of proper atmosphere can create an unintended, vague and obscure scene, which is OK....but not my watch. All the academic training in college was great but it didn’t give me the experience, background and skill-set that I craved as a novice artist. That burning desire led me to take extra drawing courses and I even started doing portraits for fun after graduating . Once that skill-set was strengthened and amplified, I was free to create anything and explore everything that I wanted. There is a certain kind of freedom and confidence in going that extra mile that made the “magic” happen no matter what the medium or environment. It became much more about “hard work” (and the joy derived thereof) rather than any talent that I had. This was the real force and energy that forged me as an artist.
What you see in my landcapes are actually portraits of the land, or "Aina", as we call it. These are not photos but real paintings of exact scenes from nature. I choose to incorporate other trends, colors and design concepts into my compositions using symmetry, asymmetry, principal of 3’s, juxtaposition, shifting focal points and randomness . The uni-colored background helped me to create a sort of buttress for floating color wisps and other graphical gestures. It's that look and feel or one-of-a-kind uniqueness that makes me excited about other possibilities and exploring new frontiers in art, in every painting, all the time. I hope that you find that same uniqueness and excitement in viewing these pieces too.
Just released... recent directions in B/W photography - an old passion of mine. The viewer will be guided into a implied sense of motion and mood with minimalistic forms, shapes and colors, a kind of mind travel on a path to inner discovery and experience.
New works are posted all the time. So stay tuned and visit often....Mahalo A nui.
Artist Statement: (The short version)
Expression is Limitless......Shoot for the Stars.....and beyond!
John with "Hana on Cosmic Tour"