John Fitzsimmons joins Gallery 54

One look at the paintings of John Fitzsimmons, recently hung at Gallery 54, and you know why the gallery reached-out to bring John and his work into the gallery.

The paintings you'll enjoy currently are not the standard grand landscape you might expect from a painter who self-describes as a figurative and landscape painter. Instead, you'll appreciate John's delicate touch with various elements that often only play supporting roles in a more traditional grand landscape.

A new selection of John Fitzsimmons paintings.

When John starts a painting he tends to have a strong visual idea, any changes tend to be reductive, where he removes elements and simplifies form and color. John says he like the hard, low winter light and heavy massed forms that the light has to fight its way around.

John says, "I am often uncomfortable with the images when I am done with the paintings but avoid reducing the tensions and conflicts which are important to the work. Often an idea is in my sketchbook for months or even years and I play with those ideas with more drawings or small paintings. 

John prefers painting in oil on plywood or Masonite panels and sometimes uses scribers and scrapers to incise lines, modify edges or add detail. 

"I feel that the painting has to have a life of its own and what is important once it leaves the studio, is that it resonates with the viewer," John says.

When you next visit the gallery, be sure to ask to see John's paintings.