Meet John Airo in Andersonville

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

Thanks for sharing your story with us John. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My father came to Chicago from Sicily after spending much of his youth in the south of France. He married my mom and had four children, the youngest being me. When left the area when I was still pretty young but I moved back to the city in my late teens and I’ve lived here (within a few miles of where my family first landed) ever since. I attended the School of the Art Institute for a few years but dropped out to “find myself”, only to fumble through years of shitty bands, bar jobs, and relationships. I managed to stay focused, however, by raising my (now 23-year-old) son and never letting my need to create art go unfulfilled. I am currently a working artist and I live in Andersonville with my very patient and supportive girlfriend. Sometimes, it’s the long way that gets you to where you’re supposed to be.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I would not feel comfortable itemizing every bump in the road, but between a dead mom, multiple dead friends and relatives, a baby momma whose minimal existence in my life has been almost exclusively negative, hands and face bones that ache from too much fighting in my younger years, and a bulletproof father whose story and impact on me is too deep to even attempt to talk through, I would say, it has not been the smoothest road. That being said, there is not a day that goes by that I don’t feel blessed to be where I am and surrounded by the amazing people in my life.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about John Airo – what should we know?
I am a multimedia artist but my main focus is painting, I’m not very versed in the comic book world but I have always enjoyed making comics, this year I’ve even started doing some animation. I also enjoy making videos done with puppet style sets and characters. I don’t have the patience for stop-motion animation so I will build little animals/people that work with wires or something hand operated. I’ve made a lot of mix media Chicago flags, there’s a lot of them around the city, and I’m kind of always making pen and ink drawings of little fat birds. They crack me up and they tend to sell well. Painting is my heart and soul though, I love acrylics and paint on panel/board mostly, using almost exclusively found material.

Currently, my work has been focused on a series of stumps. paintings of broken and chopped up trees that, although beat up are growing bright and lively shapes and colors in the form of moss and fungus etc. It is my favorite body of work that I’ve made, and the idea of new life and bright beautiful living things growing out of an old beat up stumps that ruled forests for decades reflects a lot of how I feel about the intense and changing times we are living in.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Success is a tough word to get my head around, I truly believe in what I am doing, that art is important and that making art for art’s sake is the best thing a person can do. Since success is usually synonymous with money, it’s hard to always feel like I’ve succeeded, but I treat every piece of art I make the same, be it a well-paying commission or drawing some kid on a bus asks me to make for him, they are all important and made with my heart all in. I obsess over creating, I wish there was more time in a day to work. I also believe that if the work is good enough it will be noticed, and if I’m too concerned about how and when it will be discovered that I’m doing it for the wrong reason. However, I do not recommend this approach to business.

Pricing:

• Birds! Always down to make people birds, 5” x 8” is $50, but I’ll make any size bird you want.

Contact Info:

• Website: johnairo.com
• Email: john@johnairo.com
• Instagram: @johnairoart
• Facebook: John Airo Art
• Twitter: @johnairoart

Image Credit:
John Airo

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