John Yoyogi Fortes studied painting at California State University, Fresno in the late 1970’s. Over the years, his paintings have evolved from imagery-based in dark comic humor to his current work layered with a visual vocabulary drawing content and meaning from many sources.

While John’s previous bodies of work began with specific ideas for paintings and their intended outcome, he’s recently made the transition reexamining his painting process and returning to a more intuitive way of creating work whereby the process builds the painting and reveals a direction for it’s content. Working in this intuitive process has led to compelling yet approachable paintings that tend to be whimsical with a dark bent. Underlying all of these works however, are Fortes’ Filipino-American up-bringing giving him a unique perspective of the human condition.

Having exhibited in California, Nevada, Chicago, New York and Norway, his paintings are represented in numerous private collections as well as the Asian American Art Centre in New York, the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada and the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, California.

In 2001 and 2002, he received grants from the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, including the Commissioners Artist Fellowship. In 2003 John received a Visual Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council and in 2004 was one of twenty artists nationwide to receive the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. John was also nominated for the Alliance of Artists Communities, Vision from the New California Project in 2006 and 2007.

This year, 2008, John’s work was selected to be included in the 2009 Artrain USA National Touring Exhibition, Infinite Mirror; Images of American Identity, curated by Blake Bradford, Director of Education at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, Illinois.

Layered in paint, meaning and humor, John’s work continues to address a broad spectrum of personal concerns ranging from social and political issues such as human rights, the environment and globalization to identity, family and memory.

John currently resides in Vallejo, California with a studio on Mare Island.