From Winslow, Arizona, David Johns is an abstract painter of works that express his inner thoughts, formed from a culture of growing up on the Navajo reservation and continuing to live nearby.

For many people, it is unusual to see abstract work such as that by Johns, a Native American artist. However, he began his career by combining figures and portraits in a traditional realist style with abstract motifs but then switched completely to abstraction.

He is also a muralist, and one of his murals, 1600 square feet and completed in 1988, is in Concord Place in Phoenix. It represents North American Indian tribes and images from sacred legends.

When he begins a painting, he has no preconceived ideas but dreams and meditates until something evolves. Essential to his work is his respect for Navajo philosophy, stories, and symbolism, and the four basic colors, which he uses frequently, of white, blue, yellow and black. Each color carries special Navajo symbolism related to air, water, light, matter, and space.

In 1998, he had a one-man exhibition in Monaco where he was praised as an artist with remarkable gifts.

Source:
David Johns', Editor, "The Artbook of the New West"