John Newsom: Nature's Course

Published on the occasion of the artist's first mid-career retrospective and his first major exhibition in his home state, this catalogue features 67 full color plates and text contributions by painter André Butzer, Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center Director Jeremiah Matthew Davis, actor Matt Dillon, art historian and curator Christian Malycha, writer Louisa McCune, and art historian, art critic, and poet Barry Schwabsky that explore the influence of Oklahoma's natural landscape on...
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Published on the occasion of the artist's first mid-career retrospective and his first major exhibition in his home state, this catalogue features 67 full color plates and text contributions by painter André Butzer, Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center Director Jeremiah Matthew Davis, actor Matt Dillon, art historian and curator Christian Malycha, writer Louisa McCune, and art historian, art critic, and poet Barry Schwabsky that explore the influence of Oklahoma's natural landscape on John Newsom's artistic career, as well as the rich art historical allusions throughout his work. The catalogue includes an interview between André Butzer and artist John Newsom entitled "Painter to Painter," an introduction entitled "Coursing Through Nature" by Jeremiah Matthew Davis, a preface by Matt Dillon, essays "Magical Realism" by Christian Malycha and "The Skeleton's Key to Nature's Course: John Newsom Paints the Cosmogram" by Louisa McCune, as well as a poem entitled "Half Past Paradise" by Barry Schwabsky. The catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition John Newsom: Nature's Course, on view at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center from March 24, 2022 to August 15, 2022. The exhibition featured 31 of the artist's paintings from the last 20 years, including his newest and largest to-date, 9 x 18-foot Nature's Course (2021-22). This fully-illustrated catalogue elaborates on the exhibition's themes, pairing text contributions with object and detail shots of John Newsom's artworks, in addition to installation images from the exhibition at Oklahoma Contemporary. Best known for his richly textured, large-scale oil on canvas paintings of flora and fauna, John Newsom's work layers and combines elements of Abstract Expressionism, minimalist geometric shapes and hyper-realistic representations of animals to create complex allegories of the natural world. Originally from Enid, Oklahoma and now based in New York, the artist stated about the relationship between his artistic path and his home state: "Growing up as a youth in Oklahoma, I had a yearning to travel and explore the world as a painter. Nature's Course is the culmination of that journey."