John Vincent

Biography

John Vincent is an award winning artist painter and film maker based in Letchworth Garden City.

A landscape painting on the living room wall of his grandparents' house first inspired his interest in what lay beneath the pictorial surface and how art had the power to generate ideas beyond what you were actually seeing. The image was a reproduction of a simple landscape with a country road running through the middle of fields in the centre of the painting. The road turned off abruptly and exited to the right side of the canvas. On each view it generated what can only be described as a repetition of thought, a desire to know what lay beyond the edges. This image planted a seed for future creations of mystery and intrigue. Where will the road end up?

Influences later in life came from work created by artists and film makers such as David Lynch, Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper and Gerhard Richter and can be seen in his work, as well as influences from earlier artists such as the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, Pieter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch. Much of the source material and locations are from his time spent living in London and from his home town of Letchworth Garden City.

The subject matter of Vincent’s work is also informed by notions of a domestic surrealism and a contemporary suburban Gothic with a touch of science fiction. These ideas have led to the exploration of eerie and atmospheric interpretations of everyday life through the lens of an oblique composition. This compositional technique requires the ability to use lighting to set up the mood with missing or hidden elements within the scene, conveying a sense of mystery. The impression that a significant event has already occurred (or is about to) is ever present. This often involves the concealment of the identities of characters within the frame or by the interaction of characters with the inanimate objects that surround them, as well as the encroachment of both nature and technology, often leading to the absence of characters entirely.

Vincent uses a range of media including oil paint, digital (pixels and vector) and video underpinned by a strong photographic component. In his work there is a blending together of drawing, photographic and video fragments as source material that are then channelled through the actions of painting, digital painting or video editing. The end results form short narratives through a series of inter-related paintings and video work.

Vincent has exhibited widely including 2007 ‘Cuts’ exhibition in Switzerland as well as numerous solo and group shows in London and England. He is also a previous prize winner at the Apthorp Prize (2001) and Creekside Open (2011).