I take inspiration from daily walks through the landscapes that underpin my artistic interrogations.

By repeating the same journey and photographing it as I go, I develop an intimate connection with place. Over time, this process reveals rhythms and structures that are not immediately apparent — contours, intervals, pauses — which become the basis for my paintings, sketches, and photographs.

The resulting works pay homage to the synergies between these discovered rhythms in the landscape and the abstract qualities of texture, light, and shadow as they shift through the seasons.

Music

Music is central to my creative process, both while walking and in the studio. My abstract paintings blend the musicality I sense in the landscape itself with my inner, subjective responses to it.

Some works are structured around the five lines of a musical stave, suggesting music and land superimposed upon one another. From this overlap emerge unique rhythms and vibrations that guide the composition.

A preoccupation with traces, fragments, exposure, and erasure runs throughout the work, posing questions about identity and presence.

Process

A habit of producing daily sketches allows for an immediate translation of visceral experience — a way of responding to the energies of the landscape and bearing witness to its rhythmic and chaotic narratives as they unfold and change.

My work sits within the tradition of lyrical abstraction. Many paintings suggest surfaces shaped and aged by the passage of time.

I build these surfaces using my own techniques, including layering strips of linen or canvas, working in mixed media, and repeatedly scratching back and sanding down. The resulting patina evokes both the action of time and the sense of multiple stories interacting within a single surface.

Textures and touch

As a counterpoint to the over-saturation of contemporary life with screen-based images, I am increasingly concerned with the finished painting as a physical, tactile artefact.

Many works invite touch, recalling the visceral nature of their origins. Some are finished with a wax varnish to encourage this form of direct engagement.

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John has a BA (hons) Photography, Film, Video, Animation: West Surrey College of Art & Design (now University for the Creative Arts, Farnham)