Painter. Sculptor. Printmaker.
John Hartley discovered his life's passion while growing up in Piqua, Ohio. Encouraged to develop his talents in an academic environment, he moved to Fort Worth, Texas in 1982 to study art at Texas Christian University. After graduation, he began building a body of work that includes paintings, prints, and sculpture.
Exhibiting throughout Texas and the United States, his work has been critically received and is included in collections across the country. In 2013, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth purchased his painting, Night Duty, for their permanent collection, which also includes three of his monoprints from its 1990 exhibition, Forty Texas Printmakers. His exhibitions include shows at Kidder Smith Gallery in Boston and Martha's Vineyard, the Arlington Museum of Art, The Barth Galleries in Columbus, Ohio, and galleries in Fort Worth, Dallas and Houston, Texas.
He continues to make art today and remains active in the Fort Worth art community. He opened Gallery 414 in 1995, an alternative art gallery exhibiting local and regional contemporary artists. He has also been a teacher and a professional art handler, working with museums, private collectors and blue chip artists from around the world.
His art reflects his many interests: the human figure, toy collecting, social issues, and more. He actively promotes art education, and encourages young people to develop creative talent and thought. And he continues to explore new mediums and push his art to its fullest potential.
Artist's Statement
Toys evoke for me memories of playtime. My growing collection of toys includes mostly cars and motorcycles, but G.I. Joe and army men are mainstays in any boy’s toy chest, including mine. Toy soldiers – whether plastic or lead – symbolize to me a popular fascination with the hero and violence. Well-worn lead soldiers and mutilated plastic army men provide layers of meaning. The chips and dings are proof of some child’s vigorous play, but they also symbolize the very real battle scars brought home by war veterans.
I see political and social commentary in the kinds of toy military figures provided children for play. Vintage sets reflect pre-WWII values that celebrated a community war effort by including medics, nurses, flag bearers, buglers, cooks and other support figures. Post WWII sets manufactured in a time dominated by anti-war movements provide only the warriors and weapons. Today, children play war games in space with intergalactic monsters and laser guns, a cultural attempt to soften the reality of war even while violent images of world conflict enter our lives through TV and the Internet.
Some say there are two ways to approach image making. One is to be influenced by the surrounding environment. Another is to create primarily from an inner world without external reference. My images rely on both. The common thread that binds my work is time: nostalgia for the past, recognition of former achievements, moments captured in a glance or pose and the power in a flame’s brief life. My aim has always been to create intellectually and emotionally significant statements of the soul.