Showing signs of his future career from a very young age, artist John Wilson particularly enjoyed drawing and it was only when entering a competition at school for making an Easter Card and winning first prize did Wilson carry on drawing, particularly cars and aircrafts.
At the young age of twelve, Wilson was given a set of oil paints together with an easel and this allowed Wilson to focus on a future and realize his true potential as an artist. The easel is something that Wilson till owns some forty years later.
Showing a key interest in art, Wilson proceeded to join art classes once a week on a Saturday which saw him occupy his time there over the next few years. Further developing his skills, Wilson then studied and embarked on a part time evening course in which he learnt both pop art as well as figure painting. During this period his pop art self-portrait was chosen to be displayed as part of an exhibition at Harrogate Art Gallery.
The career of becoming an artist was put on hold and the need to earn living was far greater as Wilson over the next stage of his life began to run his own small business whilst being married with their three daughters. Despite this his passion and love for art never stopped and always painting in his spare time, the artist continued to work on pieces for his own enjoyment.
Come the 1990's Wilson focused and returned to his love with a more serious approach and this enabled his work to be shown in local galleries. Since then the demand for his work to be shown through local galleries is ever popular and Wilson has since had several popular exhibitions enabling painting to now occupy most of his time and pursuing his true dream.
Inspirations can come from anywhere and everywhere. When viewing others exhibitions for example, Wilson thought he witnessed a flight of stairs at a Hockney exhibition, leading up to a beautiful bright blue sky, on closer inspection it was a wooden table on a veranda looking out at a sea. As soon as he got home he painted the vision that he thought he had seen a first glance.
It was when his youngest daughter brought home a drawing she had created from play school in crayon of herself that Wilson's fascination with youthful perception began to take place. All of the drawings he began to seek out all had the same full frontal, stick arms and legs. This had stirred his own creativity and encouraged Wilson to make his own youthful images, holding back nothing and simply reverting back to letting all inhibitions go. This was to then cleverly be combined with his adult style of painting.
The processes, ideas and inspirations come quickly and frequently to the artist and he is always one step ahead planning his next masterpiece. Despite the lack of organization and structure when it comes to Wilson's palate and working space, the fact that a neat and sharp image is able to emerge from the chaos validates why the artist loves his craft as much as he does, that from all of the chaos something quite beautiful and meaningful can rise from the mounts of chaos.
The artist only titles his work when finished and deems it appropriate to coincide with that particular image. His work is certainly one of its kind and unique among most contemporaries to date and his innocent child like depictions are a fresh and innovative addition to mature and sophisticated realistic paintings such as his famous gallery depictions that we often see today.
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