Painter and Printmaker John Hundley Greer moves fluidly between abstraction and representation, color and black and white, and pattern and figuration. From the late 1980s through the early 2000s, Greer was known for dazzling geometric abstractions featuring recombinations of vibrantly colored shapes. Referencing hard-edged modernism, but with his hand visible in the mark-making, this period culminated in an extensive 2000 to 2004 series of circular paintings which featured complex puzzlings of interlocking arched bars in thick primary colors.
In 2006 Greer took a sabbatical from his studio practice. He returned in 2008 with the series Night and Day at Home: painterly India ink drawings on paper depicting the interior of his apartment and the urban landscape of Jackson Heights, NY in varying lighting conditions, exploring ways the natural world inhabits the built landscape. These introspective, keenly observed works open a window into the artist’s everyday life and read as intimate and autobiographical. They often feature not only physical windows that let in the light, but the windows of his computer screen, as well as his own past works which hang on the walls of his home. At first glance, these seem like a radical departure from his earlier geometric abstractions, yet they have a common strategy of repeatedly returning to similar compositions, exploring subtle variations in form and color.
In 2016, while working on a series of high-contrast, black and white woodblock prints of arboreal form, color exploded back into Greer’s work. The blocky, red brick of New York apartment buildings glowing warm in the filtered sunlight is starkly contrasted by the vividly saturated yet moodily translucent greens of the trees in the courtyard. These vivacious gouache paintings represent a contemplative return to Greer’s earliest interiors and landscapes.
John Hundley Greer was born in 1953 in South Boston, Virginia. He discovered a propensity for making pictures at an early age, and was inspired by a three-month trip in 1973 to study European art, which ingrained in him an appreciation for the rich history of figurative work, and a critical yet playful skepticism towards the contemporary that continues to guide his practice. Greer completed a BFA in Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1975, and a BA in Art Education from the same institution in 1979. He moved to New York City, earned an MFA in Painting at Hunter College in 1984, and was an active member of the art community in the Lower East Side during a period of intense foment and cultural productivity.
Greer has exhibited his work at The Drawing Center, NY; The LAX Art Program, CA; George Billis Gallery, NY; The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, VA; Wooster Art Space, NY; Martina }{ Johnston, CA; and Galerie Marie-Louise Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland; as well as in numerous group exhibitions. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center (2016), and Golden Snail at the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, OR (2011). His work has been reviewed in Art in America, The New York Times and Paper Magazine. Greer collaborated with Lambda Award recipient Henry Flesh on the illustrated novel "Michael" (Akashic Press, 2000), which tells the story of an older gay man who encounters an apocalyptic cult, a situation that echoes experiences in Greer’s life. In 2019, he exhibited his newest paintings and prints in a solo exhibition at The Prizery in his hometown of South Boston, VA.