Approach Painting

Born in 1967, John McCaw is the eldest son of American expressionist Dan McCaw and brother to artist Danny McCaw. Working together as a family of artist there exist a natural alchemy. Although clearly influenced by each other, John articulates a unique vision and creativity. Through studies in anthropology and ceramics, John's paintings take on an organic rather than a pristine appearance. Many of John's paintings appear to have been dug up from the earth or washed up on the shore to reveal something from the past. These pieces of art are a way of assisting the beholder to see themselves in relation to the greater transformations of the past and the evolution of their own psychological worlds. This type of transformation entails a kind of symbolic self-involvement in the very process of life itself. Each work of art contains elements of life, bits and pieces that reveal the anatomy of our existence. Many of these pieces suggest universal themes such as, life and death, fate and circumstance, joy and sadness, human relationships, religion, graphic symbols, modern culture and so on. The ability to look beyond the object and seek a more profound understanding is simply more then finding answers; it involves the more abstract goal of finding" meaning". In a sense, we need not only to describe what we see or how we feel, but we also have to try and explain it, if only to ourselves. Analogy, inferences and a great deal of imagination help to interpret these intellectual pieces of art. Just as the interpretation is individual, the process and application of producing these pieces of art are just as diverse. Some paintings are conceived, thought out and applied while others are as spontaneous as the emotion that accompanies them along the way. The emphasis on strong design, simple shapes, variety of surfaces and sensitive color enables John to create well balanced visually stimulating art that encourages the viewer to look within themselves. For John, reality is not the act of experiencing something it is the emotion associated with it.