Meet John Pototschnik of John Pototschnik Fine Art

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Pototschnik.

John, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I am an artist, primarily a landscape painter. My paintings are in oil, naturalistic in style, and depict scenes of the “America We All Love”. My journey began when trying to decide what to major in while in college. Beginning as a business major, I quickly switched to art, and graduated from Wichita State University in 1968 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree.

After a four-year stint with the Air Force in California and attending the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles at night, Dallas became home in 1972. At that time, I began a freelance illustration career and worked with all of Dallas’ largest advertising agencies for ten years.

By 1982, the advertising industry was beginning to change, I had tired of the illustration business, so a decision was made to switch to the fine arts…something I preferred to do from the beginning but was told you’ll never make a living in the fine arts. Anyway, I did take the leap and have been a professional in the fine arts ever since.

Has it been a smooth road?
I don’t know of any profession in which the road traveled provides smooth sailing, certainly not the “arts”. The stresses, obstacles, and challenges that attend a self-employed artist always exist. We struggle with the quality of the work, deadlines, rejection, self-doubt, and sales; it’s continuous.

Freelance illustration provided a more stable income, because once good work was produced for an ad agency, one could generally count on a pretty continuous flow of assignments. Fine art on the other hand is considerably more difficult, and much less predictable, so one really needs to stay vigilant in doing quality work, finding good representation, staying visible to the public through various forms of media, live frugally, and put any extra income aside for the inevitable ups-and-downs of the market.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the John Pototschnik Fine Art story. Tell us more about the business.
I have been blessed greatly to do what I love, despite the stresses and frustrations, because this is what God has led me to do. I am an oil painter of landscapes, cityscapes, still life, and figurative subjects, but my first love is the landscape.

The landscape provides a venue for me to express my feelings about nature, the amazing variety of the land, it’s ever changing moods, and man’s relation to it I do this in a naturalistic way…in other words…the paintings have a reality, a deep truth about them that allows the viewer to enter, to escape, to remember, and experience peace.

My paintings are not flamboyant, not mysterious, not trendy, nor are they shocking. I am interested in depicting the truth about life, as I see it, in a naturalistic way – free of frills and bravado. I enjoy painting simple, common, everyday life and objects as things of beauty and worth. I strive to show the dignity and value of the subjects I paint. I hope to give to society paintings that transcend the culture and its ever changing tastes…paintings that speak to the heart.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I’m not sure what the future holds for the fine art of painting. There will always be a place for beautiful things, things that elevate, but whether individual hand-crafted paintings will have as much value and importance to future generations as they have had in the past, I don’t know.

Lack of art education, shortened attention span, ever expanding technology, increased desire for the latest and greatest thing…and a new generation that has had little exposure to fine art… could greatly affect how fine art is valued in the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: pototschnik.com
• Phone: 972-442-5109
• Email: john@pototschnik.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.pototschnik.fine.art/

Image Credit:
All images copyrighted by John Pototschnik 2017

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