John Newsom

Painting

Newsom is best known for combining multiple techniques of formal painting strategies onto large canvases, featuring dynamic spectacles of the natural world. His paintings are created by overlapping coats of heavy oil paint which give rise to a highly gestural and intuitive formal vocabulary. Evenly toned backgrounds of color are juxtaposed with expressionistic splashes of white oil paint.^[2] In an added surface, Newsom paints recurrent monochromatic geometric shapes such as squares or circles in a hard-edge manner. He then renders the subject matter with a densely thick layering of various brushstrokes. Newsom consistently paints a wide variety of animals and flora.^[3] His reduced subject matter and calligraphic style, has been compared to the works of Philip Guston, for the reason that by focusing on a limited, but meaningful subject matter, an individual technique matures.^[4] Moreover, Newsom’s work has been interpreted as allegorical still lifes that capture the essence of Darwinism: "The tradition of the great naturalists – creating works of art that explore the complex relationships in nature."^[5]