Artist Statement
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For as long as I can remember, I have always been the ‘misfit’ that didn’t feel as if they didn’t belong. I never wore the right clothes, I wasn’t interested in sports, and quite honestly I was that nerdy kid that didn’t have friends. Where I found my true happiness was escaping reality and exploring art in all forms. This was my comfort zone, and even from a young age I knew that this would be my calling in life, creating my interpretations of how I saw the world around me.
Towards the end of middle school, my entire life was changed when I began listening to New Wave music. The first two videos that I watched on MTV at a friends house (because my parents refused to pay for cable) was Be Near Me (ABC) and Hold Me Now (Thompson Twins). With those two songs, it was if my entire world was changed forever! I was fascinated by their clothes, the music, finding this voice and freedom that I hadn’t felt before! I transformed to the kid wearing hand me downs to wearing the outrageous clothing, having the BIG ‘Flock of Seagulls’ hair, having my own voice and charting my own path without regards to what others said.
It was this freedom of the 80’s that lead me to create ArtNewWave, my own personal art movement if you will…. ArtNewWave is MY definition of art, of what I create and share. It’s MY style of expression, not limited to boring constraints of being stereotyped into some category that doesn’t quite fit. ArtNewWave is a combination of ART and the New Wave movement – it’s the way that I interpret what I see, hear and feel from the world around me.
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People often ask how I describe my ‘style’ of artwork, and for many years I didn’t have a clear answer to give people except for listing off a bunch of unrelated adjectives that left everyone (including myself) confused. Since I couldn’t ever find one ‘style’ that described what I create, that’s when I began to use the term mixed media fusion. It’s a combination of the different mediums that I’ve mastered over the years combined into finished works of art.
The majority of my artwork is an exploration of creating textures and layers with color, from larger sized canvases to smaller wearable works of art. I could spend hours getting lost in my studio discovering new ways of layering text, images and found objects with a Virgo’s attention to the smallest of details. These details often lead to creating hidden treasures into my artwork that I like to surprise and delight the viewer to discover whether inside of mini tins, vessels or in the background layers.
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Artist Biography
John Creighton Petersen is a lifelong resident of Seattle, Washington (USA). Although his degree is in photography, his vast knowledge of a variety of art mediums has led him to become a mixed media fusion artist.
Even as a child, John has always had an obsession with paper and everything that could be done with it- lettering, painting, collage and even bookmaking. This passion for paper arts lead him into a variety of different fields along the way including printing and design. In high school he began making journals from old books that I kept sketches, ideas, clippings, and my day to day adventures in which naturally led me into the altered arts- and three shelves of books! Along the way John a few more “obsessions” including calligraphy, beading, and rubber stamping. All of these creative endeavors are combined into creating artwork which fuses these mediums into mixed media works.
To view his complete professional working experience, visit his LinkedIn Profile.
