For many years John has used the traditional method of the triptych to propel his narrative. Often grouping symbols that at times seem both ambiguous and mysterious in order to create a dialogue with the viewer. These panels/symbols compete with each other and demand our attention simultaneously. However, we cannot mentally internalize each symbol and or marking simultaneously and that is where the conflict begins.
He has recently moved to layering images physically over top of one another, sometimes this image is represented in a hard contour line and at other times developed as part of the negative space matching the tone of the original substrate. The symbol exposes itself to the viewer, yet is silent in its presence. Not unlike Plato’s Cave, they are names of things that we cannot see, things that we can only grasp with the mind. The viewer makes inferences for things that are not truly there, we may acquire concepts by our perceptual experience of physical objects. But we would be mistaken if we thought that the concepts that we grasp mentally were on the same level as the things we physically perceive in the material world. The contour shapes of objects over the drawing or paintings are much like the things we do not speak of and carry within our person. At times the silence of these shapes is based on suppressed feelings in order to protect ourselves for fear of reprisals from others.
