The Journey by John DeFrance 60"x60"

JOHN DEFRANCE - ARTIST BIOGRAPHY AND ARTIST STATEMENT   My first memories of art were from elementary school. I did not care much about school but I was determined to have the best art project. Things did not change much as time went on and school never seemed to catch my fancy until college. I attended Texas Tech University, University of North Texas, Italy and back to Texas Tech University where I graduated with a bachelor of fine arts in painting. Eventually realizing that employers were not beating down the door to hire recent BFA graduates I decided to move to Santa Fe, New Mexico and embark on a dream.   The dream led me to Colorado, Los Angeles, New York, England and eventually Dallas, Texas in 1998. Dallas was kind enough to introduce me to my future wife and she was kind enough to later introduce me to my daughter in 2008. We currently reside in Midland Texas, a place of little distraction and also where I spent most of my youth.   While in Dallas, I co-founded a mural business (Resurrection Art Group Services) with my friend and mentor Daniel Emmerick Pedigo This business provided us with many opportunities to work for some of the prominent Dallas families. For me it felt as if I was getting paid to go back to school. The challenges, the expectations, the struggles, truly began to forge my artistic skills. We were forced to become sound in multiple artistic disciplines to compete and I believe that is evident in my body of work as a whole.   Creating art has truly been a passion as long as I can remember. It?s like a parrot on my shoulder that won?t shut up. I have been creating almost daily for 20 years and I feel like I am just now getting warmed up.