Paintings and Assemblages by John Mellencamp

curated by Academy senior critic Dexter Wimberly

As his musical career flourished, John Mellencamp began to paint earnestly in 1980 with an early affinity for portraiture influenced by the works of Otto Dix and Max Beckmann. Mellencamp‘s kinship with the German Expressionism of the early 20th century, with its existential focus on the human condition, serves as the foundation for the development of his oeuvre. Mellencamp’s paintings and assemblages document America’s heart and soul, revealing unsettling but beautiful truths with a kind of anti-establishment frown and a rich sense of narrative. Like his music, Mellencamp’s visual art is carefully composed through the structural requirements of harmony, rhythm and order, and are thematically in line with the small-town, earnest voice of the heartland.

View John Mellencamp’s interview with CBS News: