This one has a special meaning to me. Like many, I started painting at an early age and I did it simply because I enjoyed it. Basketball took over a great deal of my life in my teens and early twenties, and I just didn’t make the time to paint quite as much during that period. The passion was reinvigorated in my late twenties and I began to paint pretty often again, but just for me. People would notice at social gatherings and I might sell a piece here and there, but it wasn’t my intent. Then it was. I started looking at artists websites and the paintings they were selling. Then my art slowly started changing. I started making what I thought would sell, not what I liked. The compliments and likes made it worse. Those little dopamine hits made me go harder. And don’t get me wrong, I do like some of the paintings I created, but a lot are just not me.
I’m a libra to the core and a lot of the typical attributes assigned to us I resonate with. One of them being I am drawn to beautiful things, minimalistic in nature for me specifically. And this painting is that to me, beautiful and minimalistic. Also representing a full circle moment. And it may not be that to you. That is fine as well. But, this is me. This is John Wesley.
36 × 36 in. - Acrylic on canvas
This one has a special meaning to me. Like many, I started painting at an early age and I did it simply because I enjoyed it. Basketball took over a great deal of my life in my teens and early twenties, and I just didn’t make the time to paint quite as much during that period. The passion was reinvigorated in my late twenties and I began to paint pretty often again, but just for me. People would notice at social gatherings and I might sell a piece here and there, but it wasn’t my intent. Then it was. I started looking at artists websites and the paintings they were selling. Then my art slowly started changing. I started making what I thought would sell, not what I liked. The compliments and likes made it worse. Those little dopamine hits made me go harder. And don’t get me wrong, I do like some of the paintings I created, but a lot are just not me.
I’m a libra to the core and a lot of the typical attributes assigned to us I resonate with. One of them being I am drawn to beautiful things, minimalistic in nature for me specifically. And this painting is that to me, beautiful and minimalistic. Also representing a full circle moment. And it may not be that to you. That is fine as well. But, this is me. This is John Wesley.
36 × 36 in. - Acrylic on canvas
