Florida Artists Group

Artists Bio:

John is an emerging artist with a solid educational background. He studied fine arts at The Cleveland Institute of Art; graphic design at The Cooper School of Art and has had a keen interest in photography since grade school.

Following his formal education, he then went on to manage an in-house ad agency, where he honed his eye for design in a career that spanned several decades. Shortly after retiring to Florida in 2011, he embarked on his current vocation as a fine art photographer.

His current focus is on displaying his work in solo, group and juried exhibitions throughout the state of Florida.

Most of John’s painterly photographs are captured at the parks, preserves and beaches of Southwest Florida and processed at his home office in Venice. He has been a member and volunteer at the Venice Art Center since 2013 and a member of the Florida Artists Group (FLAG) since 2018.

Artist’s Statement:

John Hintz takes nature photographs that would probably be out of place among the straightforward, hyper-articulated images in National Geographic or any venue where documentary realism is privileged. Yet his photo-inversions are as meticulously composed as anything one might find in those glossy realms; and often reveal, through their radical departure from naturalism, various shapes, associations, and even multilayered stories right out in the open (but invisible to the naked eye or any other means of conventional perception).

The parks, preserves, and beaches of southwest Florida are where John harvests his painterly photographs, regularly descending upon this tropical landscape to locate “the most extraordinary and fascinating natural compositions I can find - preferably with a strong focal point, a dark background, and a good variety of color.”

Then, after returning home and downloading his catch, he selects the prime images and inverts their original colors - to their direct opposites in the color spectrum; so greens become reds, blues become oranges, yellows become purples. It’s only at that moment - when painstaking composition meets technological transformation - that John actually knows what he has created.

The unusual, oversaturated colors add a fantastical element to the images, making them seem like snapshots from another dimension - an inverted world that resembles our own, yet with otherworldly deviations. For John, though, the decidedly surrealist bent of his pictures may be incidental to their most significant achievement, which is to actually reveal parts of our own world that would surely go missing without his roving, dedicated eye.

“Inverting the colors enriches subtle, intricate details, especially in dark areas where, in the original colors, the image is mostly obscured” says John. “There’s a rich interplay between this whole other layer of shadows, lines, and shapes that comes through - from stray vegetation and different textures in the landscape or some other convergence of plant life and terrain. Nature does the work, ultimately - I just apply a sort of filter that makes it visible.”

John’s interest in photography began when he was in grade school and got his first camera, a Kodak Brownie Starflash. Later, he studied fine arts and graphic design, then went on to manage an in-house ad agency, where he honed his eye for design in a career that spanned several decades.

The raw beauty and wonder of nature is relentless and overwhelming, to the point sometimes where it seems mundane - something we take for granted, especially in a place like Florida with so much wildness intact. John Hintz’s art, as much as it reveals hidden bounties, also refocuses our appreciation of nature by isolating distinct, finely composed scenes so that we may once again “stop and smell the roses” (notwithstanding the fact that his roses are green and attached to purple bushes).

Group Exhibitions:

2019 Venice Regional Bayfront Health, Venice, FL
2016 Englewood Camera Club Expo, Englewood Art Center, Englewood, FL

Juried Exhibitions:

2021 Florida Artists Group 71st Anniversary Exhibition, Dunedin Fine Art Center, Dunedin, FL
2020 Florida Artists Group 70th Anniversary Exhibition, Foosaner Art Museum, Melbourne, FL
2020 “Strides of March”, The Studio@620, Saint Petersburg, FL

2019 “Flashes of Brilliance”, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL
2019 Fall Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL
2019 Florida Artists Group 69th Anniversary Exhibition, Ringling College of Art & Design, Sarasota, FL
2019 "Wide Open Spaces", Venice Art Center, Venice, FL
2019 Florida Artists Group in Naples, Naples Art Association, Naples, FL
2019 Spring Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL

2018 INTERMIX, Art Center Sarasota, Sarasota, FL
2018 Fall Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL
2018 Spring Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL

2017 Fall Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL
2017 Spring Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL

2016 Third Triannual Competition, Florida Camera Club Council (Online)
2016 Fall Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL
2016 Second Triannual Competition, Florida Camera Club Council (Online)
2016 Spring Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL

2015 Third Triannual Competition, Florida Camera Club Council (Online)
2015 Second Triannual Competition, Florida Camera Club Council (Online)
2015 First Triannual Competition, Florida Camera Club Council (Online)

2014 Third Triannual Competition, Florida Camera Club Council (Online)
2014 Fall Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL
2014 Spring Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL

Corporate, Permanent and Public Collections:

Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Venice, FL

Awards:
2019 Honorable Mention, Spring Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL
2018 Special Merit – Nell Rude Award for Photography, Spring Members Show, Venice Art Center, Venice, FL
2015 Yellow Ribbon, Third Triannual Competition, Florida Camera Club Council (Online)

Published:
Artsy Shark, "Featured Artist" - April 2019, www.bit.ly/2WEUAMK
Artsy Shark, “The Art of Color” - October 2014, p. 7, www.artsyshark.com
Venice Gulf Coast Living - January 2014, Cover, pp. 4-5, Venice, FL

Education:
Graphic Design, 1970-1972, The Cooper School of Art, Cleveland, OH
Fine and Studio Arts, 1967-1969, The Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH

Memberships:
Florida Artists Group (FLAG), Area III - 2018 to present
Englewood Camera Club, Englewood, FL - 2014 to 2016
Venice Art Center, Venice, FL - 2013 to present

Gallery Affiliations:
Art Escape Gallery, Venice, FL – 2021 to present