Exhibiting Member


John Percy

Chaos theory refers to “Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions” while Entropy points to the sequence of events progressing to the inevitable descent into disorder.

In life our “initial conditions” or starting points are set by our genes and cultural or social environment. In painting the initial condition is the blank canvas which I may disrupt in some way with an arbitrary action. From the starting point both life and painting then become a series of choices available and decisions made which determine direction. Chance events or mistakes can and do happen, contributing to, or completely changing, that direction.

I aim to make works that are enigmatic, contemplative objects, carrying a certain poetic power and something that is both a statement of personal ideals and an expression of my sense of the orderly disorder around us, the continual struggle between necessary social order and desirable personal anarchy.

John Percy was born in London and studied Graphic Design at Ravensbourne College of Art & Design in Bromley, Kent, graduating in 1967. He currently lives in Maidenhead and works as a painter from his studio at Openhand Openspace in Reading


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