John Stringfellow

I’ve always used art to explore and make sense of my world and over time that has resulted in work that looks incredibly different from year to year. Sometimes my work has been commercial and decorative and at other times exceptionally confrontational and avant-garde.

Currently, I am exploring a series of abstract landscapes, and here is my statement on this series:

Chapin Memorial and Indian Neck are two places that I keep coming back to, in my walks and in my work. These landscapes speak to me. Watching them day-to-day gives me a sense that I’m walking into a play in the middle of the third act. The show never really stops; it continues with or without me. The drama continues unseen and ignored by many.

The locations represented in these paintings are part of a series that I call Forces. They are based on natural forces that are everpresent in nature but never seen. These forces move wind, water, sand, and the air that surrounds us.

The paintings represent my desire to connect with these forces on a visceral level. These forces obsess me and are a mirror of inner experiences. The energetic marks that I make speak to my inner world while representing energy in the outer world. Anger, uncertainty, and joy make their marks in my work and point toward things beyond my experience, hopefully speaking to others outside my own bubble.