John the Baptits Print

I regard painting as a physical as much as a spiritual act. I usually work on four to five pieces at a time, disseminated throughout my living space, to the sound of Sufi music. Akin to a dervish dancer, I move from one painting to another, adding and subtracting details as the energy moves me. I work directly with my fingers to convey rawness and immediacy and prefer the coarse surface of wallpaper to traditional canvas, partly for its unconventionality, partly for the possibility of concealing and revealing the underlying motifs. I define my style as Pareidolism, since the figures and shapes I perceive in my paintings are the result of pareidolia–the tendency to identify meaningful images in vague or ambiguous visual patterns. Each artwork is a profound meditation, a mirror onto my personal journey of healing and rebirth.