John
Shelton

John Shelton  I began painting in 1977 and have progressed to this day in the study of art and its history.  Studied art at Columbus College, Columbus Ga. In the late 70’s to early 80’s graduating in 1982 with  A BFA in Fine Art specializing in painting and minor in art history.  After graduating I worked in the field of art through various occupations, illustrator, graphic designer, antique frame conservator, fine art advisor and continued to pursue fine art as a career throughout the 80’s establishing in 1988 my own DBA business known as John Shelton American Art.  From the early 90’s to the present I continued the pursuit of my art and painting career studying art through the experience of paintings of the past mostly 19th and early 20th century, early realism, Barbizon, Impressionism, both American and European. I learned through the trade how to sell fine works of art to investors and collectors, helping art lovers to build collections from these periods. This experience enabled me to observe how artist of these periods created their works. This had a great influence on my painting development.  When I as child an inquisitive interest in nature. I loved seeing animals, insects interact with the environment around them. I enjoyed seeing water meander around and over rocks, later in college I studied geology and learned how rocks were bent and twisted by the forces of nature. This later found its way into my paintings.  My focus on natural began first with landscape painting. I became proficient with that course but wanted to delve deeper into the working from inside nature. At this point I began to paint abstract images of landscapes made up of fine lines and twisted forms that looked like a mix of hieroglyphs, physiological ink blobs and DNA diagrams. Basically, I was trying to paint nature on an internal psychic and molecular level. At the same time, I wanted to leave open the interpretation to the audience, as Mauricio Lasansky said to me quote, “Leave it up to the critics to decide “and “that’s their job.”   Paintings that would be included in this category. The Entrance of Christ into New York in 1984. Acrylic On canvas. The End of Time. Oil on canvas.   After this period of abstraction, I turned to the human figure in a more representational characteristic manner to show how we perceive and interact with other humans and the environments around us. I became interested in the art and culture of other nations both primitive and academic. I used this time figures cut from Masonite board at different sizes and placed together to create a 3-dimensional painting. This consisted of 300+ figures arranged from largest at front to smallest at back to show a parade, in a Mardi Gras fashion in New York City showing Christ entering New York preceded by a marching band. The Entrance of Christ into New York In 2000 A.D. Acrylic on Masonite board.   The early 90’s to the present I painted landscapes and symbolic paintings and experimented with textural impasto paint. In 2012-13 I wanted to focus on figurative nudes but was looking to combine some of my early thoughts of dimensional plans and micro and infinite spaces as in my early abstracts. I also want to show my appreciation  of Pre-Raphaelites and the purity of the works of Botticelli. I did a few works which I refer to as my Quattrocento works. I experimented at first just drawing the figure but the idea of those thin lines began to creep into the figures. The figures then broke into multi figures and gave me a clear idea of the direction to focus. I had studied oil glazing technics uses for centuries by artist and this seemed appropriate to give the transparent layers of multi figures. If you look the painting can be seen as a mere thought within a cosmic ort cloud microscopic interlacing lines from multidimensional planes. These images can also relate to the physic emotions and norm that humans have developed thought evolution.