John Krause

I am a painter. I work primarily in oil on canvas and make preparatory sketches in pastel. The pastel keeps the color vivid and helps to simplify and personalize what I see in nature. It helps reduce detail and concentrate emotion.

The inspiration for my painting comes from the thrill I experience when I see the abstraction of sunlight and shadow falling upon nature or man-made constructions. Light becomes an object for me. The interplay of light, shadow and void space becomes a compelling composition. I find there is an energy created by the fluctuation between the representation of objects and landscape and the void spaces of light and shadow that become objects unto themselves.

It can be easy to create this compositionally with architecture and landscape by pushing focal points off to one side and balancing with large masses of sky or land. What I continue to find challenging is to restrict my innate need to define these elements in a representational manner. My goal is to be able to paint these as purely abstract shapes.

There thrill I find when painting a scene and I add a shadow or a stroke of light and suddenly the painting gels and pops! Ideally, I would like to achieve this sensation through the lens of abstraction, feeling the same thrill. The representational world provides me with my subject matter.  I work toward shedding the conventions of depicting the world as expected: the sky is blue and the grass is green. Whether completely abstract or representational, the elements of a painting still need to relate and be considered, for the outcome to be successful. Both modes of depiction are the same I that regard.

I try not to think too much about meaning in my work. I simply paint what excites me visually and hope that the joy of the success of the painting comes through as meaning enough. As one of my college instructors once told me, "Make the painting and think about it later."