Biography

John Pointon was born in Sydney in 1939. He grew up in Bondi and was educated at Trinity Grammar School. He now lives at the Gold Coast.

His chosen career on leaving school was Advertising where he worked for a number of years, before extending his career into Marketing.

His favourite recreational activity was drawing and painting. This developed steadily, and his art began to sell at various venues and art shows in New South Wales. In 1969 he decided to become a full time artist and was soon invited to exhibit at Robert Wardrup Galleries in Sydney, where he found immediate success that cemented his decision to make Fine Art his full time profession.

Pointon’s first one-man exhibitions in Sydney in 1971 and 1972 created a sensation, both selling out in 90 minutes and 40 minutes respectively, and he has gone on to enjoy a successful career for over 40 years.

John’s distinctive and very attractive style has a strong emphasis on the technique of Pointillism, where there is great attention to detail and the myriad of individually applied small dots and strokes used through the painting surface gives his pieces a two dimensional quality. His subjects focus primarily on landscape and idyllic scenes with figures, portrayed mostly in his preferred medium of oil with the palette knife.

His primary interest is the effect of light on colour and how he can create luminosity to give his paintings an added dimension. John says of his work: “I want people to feel they can step into one of my paintings and that’s exactly the effect I aim for – like creating another dimension solely through the use of colour."

John’s work has been featured in various publications and is included in many important collections including: Australian Artbank, Westpac Collection, John Sands Collection, Dalgetty Collection, Queensland Rugby League Executive offices, and many other important corporate and private collections in Australia, USA, UK, Japan and Europe.