About John Boak

I live in Denver and Leadville. Colorado.

Graduated Cum Laude from the Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Connecticut
Graduated with a BA, majoring in Fine Art, from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Artist Statement

I am an artist and designer. I create paintings, sculpture, and architectural components. As a designer for a variety of clients, I have worked in numerous materials over the years, from paper, canvas and panel to wood, iron, steel, aluminum, glass and bronze. I am very comfortable with the design process and communicating with my clients so that they achieve what they want.

My oil paintings have covered a variety of subjects over the years from landscape to abstractions. In recent years I have been exploring architecture in my paintings, ranging from structural steel during construction to deco movie theaters in small towns.

My sculpture has been rooted in painted wood abstractions that often include metal found objects, and glyphs of my own design.

I have created architectural components both for clients and for myself. My client work has included glyphs in aluminum, bronze, slate, glass, stucco and wood. Work on my own cabin has included trim in natural aspen, window frames with glyphs, and cabinetry in twig and natural aspen.

My training includes not only fine art and its history but also the design traditions of the late nineteenth-century craft movements of Europe and America; the Vienna Werkestette; the early-20th-century modernist movements of Russia, Germany and Holland; and the vernacular architecture in eastern Europe, Russia, and Scandinavia. I also hike a lot in the western U.S., which has shown me first-hand the vernacular architecture of the gold camps and the desert Native Americans. My artistic goal is to synthesize these traditions of formal and vernacular design into a style that expresses the modern west.