Through imagination, observation and memory I paint scenes that are vehicles for contemplation. Partnered with a deep care for paint’s capacity to be visually profound, my cerebral engagement with art turns what would otherwise be purely visual forms into opportunities for philosophical inquiry. When I look back to the history of art it seems that most artwork is created to serve its subject, a subject which is in any case not only in service to the momentary desires of the maker but also in service to the desires of a collective consensus, or an ideology. Those desires are delivered to the eyes through content, forms and techniques which are painting’s codified language of the artist’s more general set of suppositions about art and reality in general. In short, I believe painting decisions are ideological decisions, even if made at a semi-conscious level. The value I see in this approach to thinking about art is that one can use the art to understand the space-time it was created in not just by looking at subject matter, but by engaging with the artist’s process.

And yet such an analytical approach to art is the bane of it all. In practice, I am much more driven by an erotic approach to painting, in Susan Sontag’s sense of the erotic. I begin most paintings with a chaotic, “all over” abstraction with a lean wash in oil paint (like if Frankenthaler tried copying a Pollock). This chaotic abstraction opens up a surreal sphere of figurative possibilities in which I introduce personal introspection to my anthropological context. It usually takes two to three painting sessions to find a composition that stings me. Since late 2023 I have been compelled by frames within frames, causing a compositional bloodline around the rectangle. After finding the composition, I will invent scenes with figures to be refined with images, hired models or quotations from other paintings, and more recently with reliefs I sculpt from Plasteline clay. Because I work improvisationally, some paintings make their ideas direct and clear, while others require months of minor and major adjustments. It is in the latter breed of painting where I will make value studies and write extensively about the visual and conceptual landscape causing the painting’s problems. In the beginning and in the end, painting for me is a tension between the formal/erotic and the conceptual/analytical.

I was born in Los Angeles, California in 1999 to a family of ballet dancers. My parents encouraged me to invest my energy towards passion most of all. With the help of discounted oil painting classes at the local studio, I was introduced to a medium that I still feel is inexhaustible. The owner of this studio, Celeste Frederickson, encouraged my curiosity and impressed upon me the importance of discipline. Now, in my Brooklyn studio, curiosity and discipline are two virtues that lead my life. Discipline to paint, look and learn, and curiosity for philosophy, politics and most recently my family history of immigrant coal mining. 

John Denniston II, January 2025

CV

Education

BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute (2022)

Six Week intensive course with Vincent Desiderio through The Art Digger Lab (2021)

Pre-college courses at MICA (2016), Academy of Art University (2015) and Art Center College of Design (2013-2014)

Exhibitions

Flower Shop, group show presented by Volery Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates 2025

Myriad, group show presented by Swivel Gallery, New York City 2024

White Lies, solo show presented by Swivel Gallery, New York City 2024

A Room with a View, group show presented by Vardan Gallery, Los Angeles, 2023

Worthless x Artsy Auction, benefit auction presented by Worthless Studios, New York City, 2023

Embodied Spaces, group show presented by Strada Gallery, New York City, 2023

Ghost in the Shell, group show presented by Everyday Moonday Gallery, Seoul, South Korea, 2023

Art of Access, group show presented by New Collectors Gallery and Projet Mone, New York City, 2023

In the Bleak Midwinter, group show presented by Swivel Gallery, New York City, 2023

Where It Itches Most, group show presented by Major Conflict at SPRING/BREAK art fair, New York City, 2022

Crash Site, solo show presented by Swivel Gallery, New York City, 2022

Icon Painting, solo show presented by The Emerson, New York City, 2022

How Could It Be Once Was, two person thesis exhibition presented by Pratt Institute Steuben Gallery, New York City, 2022