San Francisco's ArtHaus Exhibits John Wood's THE LAKE Series, Inspired by Morris Grave Compound

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San Francisco's ArtHaus Exhibits John Wood's THE LAKE Series, Inspired by Morris Grave Compound

SAN FRANCISCO, California
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May 26, 2016

ArtHaus gallerists James Bacchi and Annette Schutz have opened THE LAKE – a transitional series of new paintings by Bay Area artist John Wood, at ArtHaus in San Francisco. This work was inspired by three weeks of solitude at The Lake, The Morris Graves Foundation Compound, just south of Eureka, in late Summer, 2015.

In January of 1965 the visionary painter Morris Graves wrote a letter to an old friend in Seattle describing the compound:

“I am now, at last, buying the forest tract of land -- near Eureka -- which is where I will build a studio and settle. It is a 380-acre tract of virgin forest surrounding a five-acre lake. The forest is magnificent old-growth redwood and white fir and spruce and all the other Pacific forest plants I love to live with, and the little lake is filled with miniature islands which grow miniature salal and blue huckleberry and dwarfed spruce, etc.”

John Wood, Colors of the Lake, 45 x 60 inches. Mixed-media on paper/mounted on 108 individual panels/finished with cold wax

More than 50 years later, John Wood describes his experience and process for capturing THE LAKE. “Faced with the constant changes of the water before me, I began by working on multiple colored squares that felt like meditations. The squares kept growing and changing on the wall and I made no attempt at conscious editing, no thoughts about what would happen or how it would all come together – I just had the clear sense that it would.”

“The fog and mist settle in on the lake and all the views disappear; no trees, no north end, no peninsula or peninsula house. There is only the beautiful silver-grey and deep, deep quiet. The colors of the lake go from deep green – almost black, to light yellow and the celadon green of the duckweed. In the mist of early morning it all becomes a wonderful silver-lavender.”

John Wood earned his M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout the Bay Area and beyond, including: ArtHaus, Berkeley Art Center, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, ArtMRKT, and Pro-Arts Gallery. John Wood is represented by: ArtHaus, San Francisco, Oakopolis Creativity Center Gallery, Oakland, Phillips Gallery, Salt Lake City and Space Gallery, Denver.