John Opie

John Opie received his BFA and MA in painting from Kent State University. He has had solo exhibitions of his work at the Sylvia Schmidt Gallery , New Orleans; The Allentown Art Museum; The More Gallery, Philadelphia; The Baum School of Art; Swarthmore College Swarthmore, Pennsylvania; Galerie Simonne Stern, New Orleans; New Orleans Museum of Art, and at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. He has also been in many group exhibitions, among them, Smith College Invitational Drawing exhibition; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Kornblee Gallery, New York City and the Corcoran Museum.

"Opie’s tone is always bright, even when he portrays nighttime subjects. It is also relaxed and conversational with the rhythm and pace of a born raconteur. He’s adept at recognizing what makes something timeless yet natural in gesture. His pictures are exquisitely buoyant, and silky in terms of touch. Opie’s ability to keep on producing challenging new canvases within an accessible idiom takes on the aura of some kind of genius."

Victoria Donohoe. The Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Opie’s style – freely painted landscape, friendly, pleasant human beings – is as natively American a way of looking at things as photoprecisionism. The sophisticated innocence this artist brings to the contemporary scene is a delight, and its own goofy, rakish manner, exemplary. Opie’s paintings are all picnics, in the finest, fete galante sense of the word."

Gerrit Henry, ART NEWS

Carnival, 13 x 22 inches, acrylic on canvas