Introducing abstract painter John Hobbs
Name: John Hobbs
Discipline: Painter
Age: 47 (ancient)
Where do you live?: Stockwell London
Where did you study?: 1985-1987 Blackpool and Fylde College – Foundation Art then 1987-1990 Middlesex University - BA Hons Fashion/Textiles
Life ambition: To have a show at Tate Modern
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How did you get started?
I always wanted to go to art college, desperately, I felt this was my destiny and spiritual home. You wouldn’t imagine Blackpool having a good art college but the foundation art course was more than good, it was absolutely brilliant and attending in 1985 this where my love of painting and the creative process began.
What can you tell us about your artistic practice?
I took a huge break from painting only coming back to it again in 2012. Not wanting to return to a previous style of work, for the first time I began painting in oils and on canvas. Oil paint isn’t without limitations and is problematic but there is a magic when manipulating the paint, moving it around in ways water based paint never will. I like painting abstracts, having at times control over the paint but more often chance and accident produce the most interesting results.
Do you have a routine, or an exercise you have to do get your started?
Considering myself very fortunate in the chilly winter months my studio has a wood burning stove, often my first task is to light a fire. I then water my refugee plants saved from a horrible death having been cruelly discarded and slung out on the streets. I work on several paintings simultaneously and have an idea as to where I will begin each day but that isn’t fixed, the paintings having a life of their own and often take me down paths I hadn’t previously imagined.
What are your ambitions in the art world?
To be as recognized an artist as my hero Francis Bacon. I’m not interested in wealth or fame, although both would be a bonus, but there is no better feeling than when someone loves your work.
What advice would you have anyone starting out?
You have to love it, if you are painting for any other reason it won’t be a good path to tread. Painting will absorb much of your time and energy and all of your money so in return paint something you love yourself or you get huge enjoyment out of. Don’t consider what others will think about your work.
And lastly, choose one word:
Grotesque or beautiful? Grotesque
Urban or surreal? Urban – having a strange love of pitted old white glazed bricks
Planned or spontaneous? - Spontaneous
Monochrome or rainbow? – Monochrome
Thanks John!
You can check out his work here.
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Written by Curious Duke Gallery blogger Sinéad Loftus.
Lover of all art and fluffy cats.