"Berry's paintings instill a sanctity within the labor of painting, the editing, the scraping, the reworking, and finally saying it is done. Moments of Guston are seen within some of the thicker blocks of color though beyond the paint, an image appears telling half a story, leaving us waiting for the next clip."
- Kelly Lynn Jones for Little Paper Planes
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"John Berry differs from digital artists like Cory Arcangel and Brody Condon by rendering his mazes, "vacant puzzles or forgotten video game levels", and Lego-Lincoln Log-Tetris setups in simple (but complex), flattened (but somehow endless), and immediately appealing paintings."
- Brandon Stosuy
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"While exploring these vacant and disorienting landscapes, you start wondering where the hero of the game is, when you realize it must be you. As the hero of these worlds, what are you going to do? Who are you going to save? How many points are you going to get? With no obvious challenges or obstacles in front of you, finding the meaning of the challenge may just be the challenge itself."
-Tim Mahan for Half/Dozen Gallery
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I paint spaces of opposition that appear as vacant puzzles or forgotten video game levels. The painting’s superficial struggle is simply how to navigate the forms. Dead ends and red herrings, such as scraped paint, flat shapes, or drawn marks provide an elastic return to the surface of the painting. The work is a battleground for pictorial unity. It is a world of reduced information, an incomplete space in continual movement. They come from a childhood of make believe, forts, Nintendo and folklore.
- Kelly Lynn Jones for Little Paper Planes
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"John Berry differs from digital artists like Cory Arcangel and Brody Condon by rendering his mazes, "vacant puzzles or forgotten video game levels", and Lego-Lincoln Log-Tetris setups in simple (but complex), flattened (but somehow endless), and immediately appealing paintings."
- Brandon Stosuy
------------------------
"While exploring these vacant and disorienting landscapes, you start wondering where the hero of the game is, when you realize it must be you. As the hero of these worlds, what are you going to do? Who are you going to save? How many points are you going to get? With no obvious challenges or obstacles in front of you, finding the meaning of the challenge may just be the challenge itself."
-Tim Mahan for Half/Dozen Gallery
------------------------
I paint spaces of opposition that appear as vacant puzzles or forgotten video game levels. The painting’s superficial struggle is simply how to navigate the forms. Dead ends and red herrings, such as scraped paint, flat shapes, or drawn marks provide an elastic return to the surface of the painting. The work is a battleground for pictorial unity. It is a world of reduced information, an incomplete space in continual movement. They come from a childhood of make believe, forts, Nintendo and folklore.
