John Deardourff

Employing innovative rhythms and his signature blazing palette, JD Deardourff creates bold, graphic, bittersweet compositions that riff on traditional genres of landscape, still-life, and portraiture. His screen prints, murals, collages, and paintings draw their inspiration from the vocabulary of comic books: exaggeration, energy, movement, contour line, the interplay of sequential images, and, most importantly, artificial color. He combines these elements to form a world that is simultaneously optimistic and apocalyptic.

In 2012 Deardourff received a BFA with an emphasis in printmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied with Karl Wirsum, Gladys Nilsson, and Albert Oehlen. He has exhibited in Paris, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. JD has been a PowWow Worldwide muralist, a Yaddo fellow, a keyholder at OpenStudio DC, and the artist in residence at Strathmore Mansion. In addition to his personal work, JD has collaborated with commercial clients including Apple, Microsoft, Yelp, Capital One, MLB, DC Comics, Hilton Hotels, Sam Adams, Heineken, DC United, Burton Snowboards, Framebridge, Mellow Mushroom, Sweetgreen, Cava, Taylor Gourmet, Eaton Workshop, Citizen M, The DC Department of Public Works, and the District Department of Transportation.