John Hood is a non-objective painter of meditative forms on highly textured, mixed-media surfaces, heavily inspired by his lifelong affair with the sea. Raised in Los Angeles (Playa del Rey), his artistic journey began after moving to the mid-west in the early 1980s, where academic studies initially took him in the direction of experimental filmmaking. In the early 1990s, he held his first solo exhibition of painting and film at the Individual Artists of Oklahoma gallery in Oklahoma City. He will always find inspiration in the rust-colored soil and native influences of Oklahoma. The move toward non-representation was a slow progression from his early figurative works, often large, painterly canvases constructed with encaustic and oil. Chaim Soutine and Susan Rothenberg influenced his college works. Still, he soon became interested in the minimalist paintings of Agnes Martin, Eva Hesse, and Antonio Tapies, who incorporated nontraditional materials in their work. After trips abroad in Polynesia, he worked in mixed media; encaustic, fibers, wood, and paper. In one of his first serious works, he added wax and plaster to the paint and incorporated paper, string, and metal (Green and Black, Levitan Gallery, New York City, 1993). Exploration of latex and oil varnishes yielded an ethereal surface (Inner Companion, CAF Gallery, Santa Barbara, 2000). He is currently gravitating towards three-dimensional works, concentrating on assemblage and organic sculpture in silk, fiberglass, and encaustic materials (Immersion Pods, Gifford Gallery, Santa Barbara, 2019). These works are to be a part of site-specific installations referencing loss, meditation, and coping spaces.
