John Monteith: Painting's Influence

When you study an artist’s work, you can trace the artist’s influences and start to appreciate the fact that art is the product of creative evolution. New York based artist John Monteith has spent much of his life traveling and seeking inspiration across disciplines. Beyond the spectacle of Monteith’s paintings, awards, and his many installations, his work helps us appreciate the importance of the unique influences and experiences that distinguish our work.

The influence of experience overshadows formal education. Monteith’s formal studies started in Ontario and brought him to Pasadena, California and then to Florence, Italy and London. Despite his extensive training as an art student, Monteith sites his travels - namely his time in Japan - as his primary influences. Monteith explains that the architecture and culture of Japan have greatly influenced his latest work "through the exploration of Buddhist notions of time, the temporal philosophies of On Kawara, the spatial relationships of traditional Japanese print and Nihonga painting, as well as the philosophy of the 'Super Flat' as introduced by Takashi Murakami." Monteith goes on to explain, "during my time in Japan, I began to reconsider notions of human relationships towards architectural environment and the nature in which these spaces mediate our interpersonal and emotional interactions."

With great inspiration comes the need to narrow down the number of ideas and focus. But how do you know what to pursue and when to move on? Monteith explains, "I’m constantly turning ideas over in my mind, working them out and visualizing what I want the work to become. Some ideas seem relevant to where I am at a particular moment; the other ideas just seem to fall away and are sometimes reconsidered at a later date. It’s a process that happens intuitively rather then one I’ve put to paper in the formulation of sketches or any other any particular plan."

"As a creative professional one thing that is very important for me is that my work continues to develop and that I don’t keep creating the same work over again just because it was successful critically or financially. I try to keep things interesting for myself by trying to realize new projects and overcome technical issues within the work. At times when I think 'how do I paint that' the answer doesn’t come immediately, however once I begin painting my experience takes over and the work develops seemingly separate from my mind. Recently I have begun to draw a deeper understanding from my work and what it is about allowing for it to grow organically rather that having a fixed idea of what the piece is suppose to be before I’ve begun. I feel that this approach and frame of mind allows the work to become what it 'will' be instead of any particular preconceived notion of what the work ‘should’ look like. This allows me to experiment and gives me the freedom to work in an unrestricted manner that might otherwise stifle the work in a sense of predictability."