Louise, Painting a portrait © John Klein
John Klein
Joyful, nostalgic and curious. While the jazz music plays and the light creates dancing shadows that move across his studio, John Klein finds the raw beauty coming to life on the linen he paints across, making texture and the sense of immediacy to paint, as the potential grows. Becoming lost in the moment, the painting enwraps Klein as the calming concept drapes across the canvas and a new sense of self is achieved, through warmth and dreaming the memory is set before him.
Louise, Oil on canvas, 60x60cm, 2020 © John Klein
Working in a marketing background and working within the film and television industry, John Klein has learnt the fundamentals of composition; lighting, colour and positioning. He has been a painter from a young age and has always completed his works within the privacy of home, doing so for the therapy it oh so often provides. It wasn’t until 10 years ago that he decided to publicly show his works to which the recognition was shown, being a finalist in the Mosman Art Prize.
An avid collector of Art Nouveau and Art Deco these objects regularly feature within his works. Klein often documents the way in which shadows move through his attic studio and how this forms a new image. When he was working full time he would work into the late hours. However, he now has the time to paint during the day and regularly escapes into the art he creates. Finding beauty within floral forms, he works predominantly with still life, capturing the moments as the light crosses his subject of inspiration.
The Hall Table, Oil on canvas, 61x50.8cm © John Klein
Sombre and silent he finds inspiration from artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec who used to paint on cardboard and worked on different textures to see how it holds and works with paint. Consistently inspired by the beauty of women and their complex personalities, he works to extend his unique painting aesthetic. Klein again incorporates his adaptability to working with composition to enhance the subject he is completing, the lighting, and the texture of the oil paint making sure to establish this with the surfaces he works upon. Casting the eye of the observer to feel more than what is painted and rather what it has become.
Tamara de Lempick, Oil on Linen, 20x20cm © John Klein
John Klein was interviewed in July 2022.
By Danny Booth
John Klein is a finalist in Hunters Hill Town Hall, NSW, Australia. Exhibition 12-20 November 2022.
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Images © John Klein