John Jennings
John Jennings Artist Statement 2022.
I started to make art at the age of 15 in 1965 after visiting the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford. I’d never visited a contemporary art gallery before and it was a revelation! My brain instantly reorganize itself and I knew from that moment that I would spend the rest of my life making Art. Today that moment is as clear now as it was fifty six years ago and I’m still painting.
Through self taught black and white photography in the nineteen seventies I was strongly drawn to formalist abstract photography which migrated into my paintings and still does.
Colour has always been the key driving force behind my abstract paintings. I don’t previsualize or plan. Though I do draw, my drawings are in themselves unique works of art not a basis on which to make a painting. Nor do I ignore the reality around me. It can trigger a cascade of painting but none of them will be what was seen. I rely on my intuition and visceral energy to guide and drive me. And a fluency of gestural brushwork and glazing techniques to create a finished painting.
