Gallery With A Cause • Located in the New Mexico Cancer Center • Benefitting the NMCC Foundation
Please call gallery director Regina Held to arrange a private gallery tour, make a purchase, or ask any questions.
Biography
Growing up in Montana, John started drawing at an early age, focusing primarily on wildlife. After graduating from Montana State University with a degree in film and making a life-altering move to Los Angeles, John embarked on a career that included animation (Count Chocula and Frankenberry anyone?), technical illustration, project management, and creative directing. After retiring and moving with his wife Barbara to a small cabin in the Mojave Desert for three years, John and Barb relocated to Placitas, New Mexico.
John is the current vice president of the Pastel Society of New Mexico and a member of the New Mexico Art League. His work has been juried into several shows, including the 2022 and 2023 Masterworks shows, the Pastel Society of NM 30th and 31st International Pastel Painting Exhibitions at the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, the Placitas Artist Series, NM Art League exhibitions, and numerous others. He and his wife also participate in the Placitas Studio Tour, and he was one of the artists in the 2022 Placitas Garden Tour. His work is in private collections in the U.S. and Canada. John continues to take advantage of the wonderful opportunities to grow and learn more from the wealth of art and artists that surround us here in New Mexico.
Artist Statement
I love the intensity of color and subtlety that pastels allow. I try to capture the light and interplay of highlights and shadows in my work. After drawing and working commercially for so many years, it is wonderful and freeing to return to making art for its own sake and creating what I want to create. I have always loved nature and the challenge of trying to capture it in some small way. The thing I like most about creating art is it makes you slow down, makes you really look closely and focus on what you see: how light and dark interplay, how colors blend and gradate, the shapes and forms in any scene. And then it makes you decide just how you are going to capture what you see and reflect it in your piece. There’s just so much going on. New Mexico provides endless inspiration, and I see a hundred things every day I would love to draw. And that is just in my own backyard!
