Douglas

Artist John Douglas was born in Kansas but raised in Arizona. Douglas's first creative influences stemmed from the delicacy and seemingly perfect scope of nature that he found in his own interactions with the diversity in the landscape of the American Southwest. John pursued an education in fine art by attending university in Arizona, as well as coursework in California where he intensively studied drawing, painting and various additional forms of art media. The artist's passion for travel has taken him around the globe and back. Personal favourite retreats include Thailand, Florence, Vienna, Prague and the Amalfi Coast – all of which have provided him with tremendous inspiration that overflows in his work. Douglas has confirmed that he is willing to go, literally, to the ends of the earth to seek out the objects and ethos of exotic places to translate into his work. He has made countless trips to the Met in New York and the Tate in London, for which he has incredible admiration and which he forever finds amazingly poignant. Douglas also acknowledges the momentum in his own work as stimulus from the intensity and curious profundity of such modern artists as Francis Bacon and Salvador Dali. He looks to Bacon for his brilliance, bold success, belief and enormity, and to Dali for his imaginative genius, eccentric character and surrealist psyche. Douglas's work transcends mere classical representation. The complex layering of paint, images, iconography and other media work together to build a fantastic bridge to a world that balances both antiquity and modernism. The sophistication in the artist's diversity of styles has been inspired from all over the world – from Greek and Roman columns to the geometry of mosaics and tile work – from the palms of the British West Indies to the royalty of the Renaissance. Douglas continues to reinvent himself with exploring new mediums such as vibrant, abstract painting on dimensional steel and copper wall sculptures, painted dimensional wood construction wall reliefs, and painted glass.