I want to create.

I was born in San Diego, California and raised in a smaller town surrounded by concrete towers and monotonous scenery named Claremont. Growing up near Pacific Beach, I took every opportunity I had to surf and drink in the swelling of the waves and the rhythm the water created around me. During middle school I was fortunate enough to stumble upon art classes being offered and took every class I could. As the years rolled by I decided to enroll in a Media Arts program at Platt College and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree shortly after. Knowing that art was my passion, I decided not to settle by accepting a nine to five office job and instead worked a lot of dead end jobs to get by – while continuing to pursue my true love, art.

Currently, I am living in Mammoth Lakes, California and working on various projects including the ones exhibited today. My website, johnnyelder.com, showcases my up to date projects and upcoming events. I continue everyday to find inspiration in life and use a canvas and paint as my medium to share my creation with the world in order to establish myself as a professional artist. I didn’t choose to be an artist; it was brought upon me and I have decided to use this gift in order to express my love for art and the world that inspires it.

I find beauty in all that is created. In my paintings, I enjoy starting with landscapes that surround the people who live in them. For example, in my piece “roots”, the tree extracts movement from reality onto the still, one-dimensional canvas.

Characters utilized in several of my paintings explain the story of how we, as humans, look at the world we live in and how we choose to live in it. My artistic approach is free of judgment: I release my emotions just as I do in everyday life free of inhibition and regret. This comes with ease when we, as our true selves, are present within our surroundings and we feel rather than think. Painting is my form of a release to express the unsaid emotions in life.