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Behind the work

Every life has a story.

Not the one we tell about them. The one they carry themselves. In their eyes. In the weight of their presence.

Wissler

Behind the paintings

A return to realism.

Portrait of the artist
Wissler · The artist behind the work

Raised in St. Louis, I began with an interest in realism. At the Kansas City Art Institute in the late 1980s, my attention shifted toward abstraction and modern expressionism.

Influenced by Robert Rauschenberg, Francis Bacon, and Joan Miró, my earlier work brought landscape and abstraction together, exploring the tension between familiarity and ambiguity.

My recent paintings return to representational realism, while I continue to make abstract work. Across both, I am drawn to a restrained palette. In my monochromatic oils, black and white leaves room for imagination and brings the painting closer to the feeling of a dream.

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John Wissler