John Brophy is an American artist living in the Seattle area and has been showing his work at Roq La Rue Gallery for the past few years. His work has also been featured in shows at Copro Gallery in Los Angeles and Dorothy Circus Gallery in Rome as well as in several publications.
John spent a lot of time traveling when he was a kid. His father worked in aerospace and his family moved a lot while he was growing up. He was born in St. Louis, but spent a large part of his life living outside the U.S., in Japan (twice) for nearly 12 years, Greece, and Spain, plus various places around the U.S. Because of having such a diversified background, he doesnât consider himself typically American.
He studied art history and art conservation/ restoration at the University of Madrid. In the end however, he wasn't satisfied with being a fan of other artists' work and wanted to make his own. After several years of trial and error, he taught himself how to paint. He is a student of the "sheer force of will" school of painting.
John usually works out his compositions on the computer using Maya, ZBrush, and Photoshop and uses the result as a concept for the final painting. He loves the freedom that designing in 3D allows, even though it is very technical and demanding. However, he considers digital imagery less interesting than traditional painting because it has no "object quality". That's why he thinks it is so important to execute the painting by hand in oil using the traditional techniques of the 15th century Flemish painters that he most admires, Memling, David, Van der Weyden, Van Eyck, etc. The digital study is only a launching point for the final painting.
In addition to the 15th century Flemish artists, he also has great admiration for contemporary artists like Todd Schorr, Alex Gross, Brian Despain, Thomas Woodruff, Pierre et Gilles and the writings of Haruki Murakami.
