Outstanding Visual Artist: Individual artists whose work within their field has made a significant impact within the discipline over five years or more.
john Sokol
John Sokol, Akron visual artist, poet, and author, approaches his artistry with a remarkable focus and dedication, and has done so for decades. Art is his passion, his daily practice, and his life’s work. John is a prolific creator, a talented painter, printmaker, and sculptor, who also works in drawing, collage, and mixed media. His choice of painting media ranges from traditional oil and acrylic to his signature tar and varnish; he also has turned a long list of materials and household products into alternative ‚Äòart supplies’ – experimental, spontaneous, and often readily available.
A 1973 graduate of Kent State University, John earned both a BFA and an MA. His work has been exhibited in the Akron Art Museum, whose collection includes his tar and varnish painting, Man Eating Trees, along with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Over the years he has also exhibited extensively in both Ohio and Pennsylvania.
In addition to the Akron Art Museum, John’s work is in the collections of the Canton Art Museum, Kent State University, numerous corporations, and private patrons. Many of his images have been reproduced as covers and illustrations in literary publications, his own and others.
In 2010, John was one of three artists in the Narratives exhibition at Summit Artspace. Dorothy Shinn, art critic for the Akron Beacon Journal, wrote, “Sokol brings a depth and sense of gravitas to his abstract paintings that few area artists are capable of achieving.” Later in 2010, Shinn singled out John’s large tar and varnish painting, winner of first place in Kaleidoscope: “On the River of Sorrow, which depicts a floating canoe on which many crows are perched, is poetic and intense, spare and at the same time incredibly nuanced. . . It’s no exaggeration to say that Sokol’s large canvas blows everything else out of the water.”
Sokol has received national recognition for his innovative painting, drawing and printmaking.
