J O H N AT K I N S HAS A VISUAL A RT ST Y L E A L L H I S OW N Writer / Jon Shoulders Photographer / Michael Durr
F
or Indy resident John Atkins, creating art is about more than producing an image on a canvas.
It’s a meditation of sorts. “A big reason why I do art is that it calms everything down, like anxiety and those types of things, especially with colored pencil drawing,” Atkins says. “I can sit and draw, and everything else goes away, and I can be at one with the paper and pencil. I know if I can keep producing then I’m in a safe space, meditation-wise.” Atkins gravitates toward oils, acrylics and watercolors in addition to colored pencils, and many of his works center on surreal human forms that break up the space of natural facial features into abstract images. “I’ll usually do an acrylic underpainting where I block out things with acrylic, and then I do oil over that so I can get detail,” he says. “I like doing it that way because if you do oil washes you have to wait forever for every layer to dry. The colored pencil drawings are mainly what people know me for, and I mainly do 8”x10” or 9”x12” pieces in colored pencil. ”
This summer Atkins had his work, including several colored pencil pieces, shown at Gallery 6202 on North College Avenue, which opened in December of 2019 and is owned by Jeff and Jackie Evans. Gallery 6202, whose tagline is “Fine Art and Fun Stuff ”, features artwork from around the world as well as Hoosier artists. “Gallery 6202, I believe, is currently the only gallery to show at in Broad Ripple,” Atkins says. “It’s a really great space and 17 / BROAD RIPPLE MAGAZINE / OCTOBER 2020 / atBRip.com
