JOHN CURRAN

Lives and works in Meyrals, France

Artist statement

John F. Curran is an American oil painter living and working in Périgord Noir, situated in the Dordogne region of southwest France. He paints a range of subjects, primarily focused on two distinct bodies of work: vibrant, color-driven landscapes of the Périgord countryside, and the India Series — paintings drawn from years spent studying in India, where certain moments left a lasting mark and have since resurfaced as flat, saturated scenes on canvas. The India Series is Curran's labor of love: a body of work built entirely from memory rather than photograph, returning again and again to moments — a police officer at a doorway, a street dog, a body afloat in the Ganges — that continue to hold real emotional weight years later. Where the Périgord landscapes celebrate the color and light of his adopted home, the India Series reaches inward, using a restrained palette and interruptions of text to let memory speak in its own, often unsettling, language. Before turning to painting full-time, Curran spent decades working at the intersection of art, design, and business — as an interior designer and in-house visual artist in San Francisco, and as CEO and Art Director of an aromatherapy company he co-founded in Denver, Colorado.

Artwork