Work By Jack Nicholson
Born in the small rural community of Ellis (pop. 2250) in west central Kansas, the painter grew up on the vast high plains. Children could quickly walk from town, and roam freely over the hilly pastures and deep ravines. The family also enjoyed property in the high Rocky Mountain region of Estes Park, Colorado. The difference of these two influential environments - which could be regarded each as the antithesis of the other - inculcated an awe of the vast beauty of nature, as well as, the profound beauty in subtle detail.
After graduating from Colorado State University and working as a share tenant rancher in Kansas, agricultural influences, like the interactions and conflicts of animals, like the interplay of weathers, like biological and economic cycles, etc., wove their way into his thinking and arts endeavors. For a while he worked for the Navajo Tribe, being profoundly influenced by the Navajo people, culture and lands. In fact, through work, he has lived throughout the Western, Mid-Atlantic, and New England United States, broadening his perspective and deepening his own appreciation, for those large influences of his life.
He currently paints in McCracken, Kansas (pop. 250), reflections from facets of his life. His paintings are mostly imaginary interpretations of real places, and reflect a surrealistic and transcendental quality of dreamscape. Style and subject of these paintings reveal a spiritualism which provokes the viewer’s own inquiry into the essence of painted subject, the subject’s relationship to the painted environment, and the viewer’s relationship to the painting.
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