Dacia Gallery - Looking In


Wendy by John Wellington

ZOOM MUSES

JOHN WELLINGTON

Solo Exhibition
July 10-30, 2021

Opening Reception
Saturday, July 10, 6:00 - 9:00pm

Meet the Artist at Opening Reception
Artist Talk at 8:00pm


STATEMENT

This series of gouaches, begun for the most part after March 2020 when the world shut down from COVID19, were painted not quite from life and not from photographs. A brilliant cast of muses, comprised of trapeze artists, dancers, and burlesque performers posed "live" on zoom where I viewed them on a 15 inch laptop and painted them in magnificent costumes they designed and fabricated themselves.
Although I have used gouache (an opaque watercolor) for decades, this exhibition at Dacia Gallery will be the first to show my studies in the medium. This series chronicles how I spent my months in quarantine, away from friends and most family, and yet connected by the zeros and ones of our times that allowed me to paint people in other cities and states. After what can generously be described as an interesting fifteen months, I am thrilled to now share some of my creative energy from this time. John Wellington - July 2021

ARTIST BIO

John Wellington was born on January 8, 1961 in Santa Monica, California. He has lived in France, Italy, and New York City where he currently resides. John received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1983 and his MFA at The New York Academy of Art in 1990.

From 1985 through 1993 John Wellington worked as a colorist primarily for Marvel Comics, painting a number of graphic novels such as the Moebius, Stan Lee’s Silver Surfer, and coloring numerous monthly titles.

John Wellington has taught traditional painting techniques at The New York Academy of Art and privately in his atelier since 1995. He also lectures and teaches painting workshops across the county and runs an en plein air gouache workshop in Paris every summer. His paintings have been in numerous exhibitions and art fairs in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Paris. He has shown at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and The Arnot Museum in New York. John has painted alongside of the Prince of Wales and is in his private collection as well as other prominent collections in the US, Asia and Europe.
John Wellington’s often controversial works find inspiration in Old Master paintings, religious and pop icons, cinema, music and his fascination with devotion, idolatry and the use of male and female imagery in art and life. A recent series of paintings and sculptures depicting Temple Bunkers, warriors and Goddesses, celebrates his fascinations with worship, fortress ruins, and the fragility of empires and the human condition.