Johnny
Otto

An Artist needs to be a lion. Wild and free. When I paint, I don't worry about what people might think of my work or how they might categorize it or try to compare it to other artists that have come before me. I just paint for the love of painting. Madly and unimpeded.

I am not part of a 'movement' when I create. I am not a 'Neo-Expressionist'. I'm not one of the 'wild ones' or one of the 'New Fauves'. I am not Basquiat or Haring. They had their moments of inspiration and tergiversation. I have mine. With brush in hand and a blank canvas in front of me, blinding my eyes with its white glare, I strive to redefine it with my spirit and all the decades of creatures and myths that have stained my journey with their blood.

Every generation has to fight to be free from those who came before them, while at the same time recognizing their genius. I do too. I have to be free from the other great artists but also pay tribute to them. I cannot ignore Picasso, or Matisse, or Dali or Van Gogh. I can borrow and steal and absorb them into my being and regurgitate their values and influences as I see fit. My hands move differently than theirs, though. My eyes scan the canvas, see the textures, absorb the colors in a manner that is all mine. Water is affected by the sun but is not the sun. It is an element unto itself. That is all I wish to be.

While I speak of influences, I cannot discard my greatest influence, my Father, who introduced me to art. The basement of our house in Canada had a fireplace, red shag carpeting, wood panels, my Father's books and a TV set. First I'd make the journey to the record store to buy the latest Hendrix album or Led Zeppelin, then I'd play them endlessly while poring over my Father's books — encyclopedias about WWI and WWII, medical textbooks, books about the masters. Not much fiction.

Once inside the heart of that great museum, I left the Old Masters behind and discovered a room which haunts me to this day: filled with objects I hadn't seen in any of my Father's books. Faces of the dead staring at me. Spiritual, alien beings carved out of wood and sheltered behind glass. I felt a disturbing presence in that room. The spirit of the dead ancestors, perhaps. These were much more than wooden carvings — they were immortality devices. A way to preserve the soul once the body had passed.

Now, as I paint, I strive to recreate what I felt back when I was a child. If the eyes follow me as I move across the room, then I know a piece is finished. I know I've captured something. A soul. A spirit. Maybe mine. For being human is to be caged in a form that has limits but is graced with a mind that is without them. The best I can hope to do is to create something that transcends the flesh — and gives hope to the spirit that it will soar as wildly as its deepest desires.