Featured Artist December 2015

John W. Wood

John Wood’s beautiful abstract imagery is the culmination of a lifetime of work in art.  He began his education in Utah at Weber State University and earned a BFA degree from the University of Utah.  This led to Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, and an MFA degree in painting.  His long career has taken him to places from New York City to California.  John now resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he has lived and worked for the past 15 years, with art as the central focus of his life.

John recently returned from three weeks of isolated time at The Lake, a residency at the Morris Graves Foundation.  He has also engaged in residencies at Long Island University, Artists-In-Education residencies in Utah, and independent mural projects in Utah, New York, Florida, and California.  He was recently invited to participate on a review panel at Syracuse University School of Architecture.

John regularly exhibits his work at galleries and museums throughout California, Utah and Colorado. ArtHaus Gallery in San Francisco exhibits John’s work and he will have a solo exhibit there in 2016.  In Denver, John exhibits his work at Space Gallery, where he has been included in group shows including the well received recent exhibit, Nature’s Line, and in 2011, he had a solo show, John Wood: Considering Eden.  His work was featured at Art Market San Francisco, International Fine Arts Fair and in a solo exhibit at SFMOMA Café Museo, and will be included in the Art in Embassies exhibition in the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb. A solo museum exhibition in 2014, Considering Orange at the Morris Graves Museum, showed off the bold yet lyrical works for which he is best known.

Artist Statement

I find that wonderful things happen when I am able to engage completely with my art.  I try to constantly remind myself to trust in the process, knowing that when I am open to an honest dialog with the emerging art, the art will lead me in the right direction.

My art is non-objective, but starts with observing the world around me.  Currently the work is influenced by the human form, but often takes clues from the landscape and flora.  I begin by just drawing, building up layers of graphite, crayon, oil-pastel and enamel.  As the process unfolds, the veils of line, form and color take over and become the focus.  I watch for the connections, the visual triggers that tell me to add more here and remove something there.

In the end, my work only alludes to the world symbolically.  I am much more interested in the emotional and sensual qualities that emerge rather than any recognizable forms.

Click here to visit the artist's website.