Today we’d like to introduce you to John Horrell.
Hi John, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My parents were children when the had me, only 17 years old. My dad was getting heavy into drug use and sales and my mom was a teen struggling to be a mom and support us both. By the time I was five, my parents were separated and my dad was in prison for murder. I give my mom a ton of credit, she struggled over those years and we moved around a lot. She remarried to the man I call dad and whose last name I use. However, the moving never stopped; my stepdad was a fresh college graduate and determined to make his mark on the world. He entered the corporate arena and about every six months, as he was promoted up the ladder we made a major move and I changed schools.
Over the 12 years of grade school, I went to 11 different schools in eight different states. We went from his college house, which had more bugs in the refrigerator than food, to living an upper-middle-class lifestyle. This nomadic lifestyle, I believe, is the reason I developed into an artist. It was nearly impossible to keep up with my grades when transferring to different schools in different parts of the country. Not that I wasn’t smart enough, they were teaching different things. Both my biological father, my stepdad and my mother were all very artistic so I think it was natural that I started drawing at a young age. I was failing in school and had no long-lasting friendships so a lot of my time was spent in my room listening to music and drawing. I think when you know the story of how I started, you can definitely see it in my work, tons of music influences, bold colors from all the diversity of the many places I’ve lived and luxury brands influenced from a very humble beginning.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, definitely not a smooth road but as the saying goes, “smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.” People see the success; they don’t see the thousands of hours of making garbage, hundreds of pieces that literally went in the garbage. Paying $400 of money you don’t have to spare for a space to show your work for the weekend, getting up at 4 am to set up a booth in the dark then working all day talking to people and sharing the most raw and real parts of your soul with no guarantee that anyone will be interested. However there’s nothing greater than seeing someone connect with your work, sometimes bringing them to tears, then that person spending their hard-earned money and taking a piece of your soul home to live with and look at everyday.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a mixed media artist. I never went to art school and because I never learned the “rules,” I don’t play by them. I’ll easily mix fine oil paint with crayons if that’s what I feel is needed. I regularly mix photography, digital art techniques and old-school spray paint graffiti. My favorite pieces to work on are pop culture pieces with bright colors and the sparkle of crushed glass. I’m most proud of pieces that young collectors buy, that first piece of “real art” that someone feels so strong about it. I’m also very proud that my artwork has been on billboard’s, restaurants and hotels, including the most recent 8ft piece in the Hard Rock Hotel in Tampa.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
With NFT’s and so much digital work, I think we will soon see people coveting anything real with texture. Almost like how people get excited about the craftsmanship of antique furniture, I think people will get excited to see brush marks, paint drips or even a brush bristle stuck in the paint, anything to connect it to something real. I love that their is a story behind every piece of art. Someone may come to your home and comment on how beautiful a piece is and that may be the end of the conversation or they can tell the story of them meeting the artist and what led them to create the piece and any secret Easter eggs that may be hidden. While I feel like the future will head more towards digital art, I think there will always be a connection to real paint and the story behind it.
Contact Info:
- Email: JoHo.art@yahoo.com
- Instagram: www.Instagram.com/JoHo.art
- Facebook: www.Facebook.com/JoHo.art
