Contemporary impressionist painter John David Anderson translates visual discoveries into compositions of colour and light
Learning how to see – “how to look with intent to discover” – has been John David Anderson’s lifelong journey. “Acquiring the skills as a painter to communicate what I learned to see started when I was 15 and copying Andrew Wyeth paintings,” says Anderson, who has been “pushing paint around professionally,” showing his work at local, national and international galleries, and teaching painting for over 20 years.
“Subject matter becomes engaging because of its relationship to light,” he explains. “The feeling of the space that contains the elements of my composition drives the idea for the canvas. Painting outside, en plein air, is where it starts … actual compositions from landscape, still life or figures provoke a response in paint driven by the light story.”
Anderson’s work evolved from an oil painter’s perspective of brush on canvas, using paint tonally applied with rich colour and an impressionist character, built upon various traditions from generations of artists.
“The subject does not drive the composition for me but light does. Movement throughout my work is driven by the interplay of warm and cool colour. The quality of light in anything I see becomes the focus of my thoughts when a painting begins. Light has an emotional statement to make as it touches things, passes by them, floods over them … it creates a colour field that allows me to enter in. Once in the space I begin an expression of the space and the affect it has on me. Colour relationships are the voice of that illuminated space that I try to speak to with my brush.”
Anderson is represented by Rational Expressions Gallery in Stayner, the Ethel Currie Gallery in Haliburton, the Double Doors Gallery in Anten Mills, and Riverside Gallery in London, UK. He also teaches painting at the Haliburton campus of Fleming College. ❧
