I have always painted.
I spent 30 years on Wall Street, but always maintained a studio in the West Village area of New York City where I would go after the market closed and use whatever energy I had left to paint large, intense canvases. At that point, working alone and in a cramped space, I began working in a manner which has stayed with me all these intervening years, from within my own head rather than from models or from still life or from actual landscapes. I found myself creating my own reality, painting imagined rather than real landscapes, recreating long-forgotten images and vistas.
As I now look back on the body of work I created during those 30 years, I am stunned to see how much those paintings presaged what I do now, both in palette and in content. But what has changed for me are the materials, the textures, and the ensuing freedom that I have discovered as I have moved on.
I find myself continually going off in new directions. I have created a number of series, each of them inspired by a trip I’ve taken or an image that has moved me, a structure that speaks to me or maybe just an idea that keeps coming back to me. In every case, I have taken an idea and then both developed it and
allowed the work itself to guide me.
I find myself continually going off in new directions. I have created a number of series, each of them inspired by a trip I’ve taken or an image that has moved me, a structure that speaks to me or maybe just an idea that keeps coming back to me. In every case, I have taken an idea and then both developed it and
allowed the work itself to guide me.
"The M Studio Gallery Artist Talk" by John Greene
John Greene and Alexander Shundi at The M Studio Gallery in Millerton, New York, 2016.
John Greene and Alexander Shundi at The M Studio Gallery in Millerton, New York, 2016.
For me, painting is, in the end, about paint: color, texture, the joy of putting it on and scraping it off.
I believe the results are best served by keen and repeated viewing. I try to introduce elements that are
hidden or apparent, that will encourage “reading” the paintings many times and constantly
discovering something new. My painting is primarily about surface, and surface in turn is about feeling -
it can be ambivalent. It gives the illusion of depth and reflection, of time and memory and complexity. One crucial element of ALL my work is the texture of the paintings, the materials I employ and the
feeling they create.
To that end, I have found that encaustic – which is really a technique – best expresses for me what
I want to project in my work. Wax is one of the earliest materials known to man; indeed, the early
Egyptian paintings have endured to this day. Incidentally, even their deceased were treated with this
wax, which resulted in the mummies we are able to see today, and which imbues them with a sense of both mystery and permanence. The combination of materials I sometimes use in my work – steel, wood, lead and copper – have an ever-changing patina and surface, whereas the wax, which is difficult to control and may lead to wonderful accidents, in the end counteracts the aging and metamorphosis of the rest of my materials.
Above all, I love the PROCESS of making a painting – revealing parts of myself that might be a mystery
even to me. I love the smells, textures, endless decisions and accidents that come from the paint, the wax, and any other materials, that seem to be consistent with my purpose, my aesthetic. The making of art is a sensual endeavor, and all the better if it speaks to the viewer – to me that is the greatest barometer of success.