John Karsten was born in Northwest England, and moved south to study printmaking at London Metropolitan University. After brief stints in Northern Italy and Slovakia, he came to America in his thirties where he made his home in Arizona. His paintings are structural in nature and are influenced by his love of science.
Since his move to the Southwest, he has found himself drawn to the palette of the Sonoran Desert. He works primarily with earth tones, and his paintings are rich with texture. He likes creating compositions of “precarious balance,” and uses a somewhat distorted “grid” to relay an important concept. To reach the heart of an object or an idea, you must break it down into its smallest pieces.
