John Folsom (b. 1967) is a multimedia artist born and raised in Paducah, Kentucky. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Cinema and Photography from Southern Illinois University. His work explores the potential of photographic images through the intersection of digital media, screen printing, and painting. His work resides in the permanent collections of The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, Louisiana, The Gibbes Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, and Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia as well as many private and public collections.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 Atlanta Printmakers Studio, Caught Looking, Atlanta, Georgia
2019 Mason-Scharfenstein Museum of Art, The Vanishing, Demorest, Georgia
Hidell Brooks Gallery, Studies for a Quiet Coast, Charlotte, North Carolina
2018 Hathaway Contemporary, The Vanishing, Atlanta, Georgia
2017 Hidell Brooks, Recent Works, Charlotte, North Carolina
2016 Hathaway Contemporary, Framework and View, Atlanta, Georgia
Callan Contemporary, Coastal Cartography, New Orleans, Louisiana
2014 New Zones Gallery, Diminishing Returns, Calgary, Canada
Tinney Contemporary, Sea Change, Nashville, Tennessee
2013 Callan Contemporary, Creeper Lagoon, New Orleans, Louisiana
2012 Tinney Contemporary, Anodyne Frontiers, Nashville, Tennessee
Blue Gallery, How To Disappear Completely, Kansas City, Missouri
2011 Marietta Cobb Museum of Art – Summering At The End of Empire, Marietta, Georgia
Vanderbilt University – Lure of the Low Country, Sarratt Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee
2010 Gibbes Museum of Art – Lure of the Low Country, Charleston, South Carolina
Zeitgeist Gallery – A Year Without A Summer : 1816, Nashville, Tennessee
New Zones Gallery – solo exhibition, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
2008 New Zones Gallery – Souvenirs , Calgary, Canada
Fay Gold Gallery – Lure of the Low Country, Atlanta, Georgia
2007 Lanoue Fine Art – solo exhibition, Boston, Massachusetts
Zeitgeist Gallery – solo exhibition, Nashville, Tennessee
2006 Fay Gold Gallery – solo exhibition, Atlanta, Georgia
Blue Gallery – solo exhibition, Kansas City, Missouri
2005 New Zones Gallery – solo exhibition, Calgary, Canada
Cumberland Gallery – solo exhibition, Nashville, Tennessee
2004 Fay Gold Gallery – solo exhibition, Atlanta, Georgia
2003 Volunteer State College – solo exhibition, Gallatin, Tennessee
2002 Blue Gallery – solo exhibition, Kansas City, Missouri
The Lowe Gallery – solo exhibition, Atlanta, Georgia
1999 Yeiser Art Center – solo exhibition, Paducah, Kentucky
1995 Cheekwood Museum of Fine Art – Two Beauties, solo exhibition, Nashville, Tennessee
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Southland, New Orleans, Louisiana
2022 Antenna Gallery, More World, curated by Brian Hitselberger, New Orleans, Louisiana
2021 Telfair Museums, Complex Uncertainties: Artists in Postwar America, Savannah, Georgia
2019 Foley Gallery, Truth Lies Beyond, New York, New York
The Bascom Center for Art, Rhythm Systems, Highlands, North Carolina
2015 Mobile Museum of Art, The New Landscape, Mobile, Alabama
David Lusk Gallery, Mash-Up; Artists Do Cardboard, Nashville, Tennessee
2010 U.S. Ambassador to Africa. Art in Embassies Exhibition, African Union, Ethiopia
2006 Museum Works Gallery – “Defining Nature”, group exhibition, Los Angeles, California
2003 The Etherton Gallery – New Photography, Tucson, Arizona
2001 Side by Side – Juried Invitational, Belfast, Northern Ireland
RESIDENCIES/ GRANTS
2014 The Banff Centre – Artist in Residence, Banff, Alberta, Canada
2012 Hambidge Center – Creative Residency Program, Rabun Gap, Georgia
2012 Fulton County Arts Council – Scholarship Award, Atlanta, Georgia
2001 Christoph Merian Foundation – Artist in Residence, Weil Am Rhein, Germany
1997 Christoph Merian Foundation – Artist in Residence, Arlesheim, Switzerland
1996 Tennessee Arts Commission - Individual Artist Fellowship, Nashville, Tennessee
1995 Metro Arts Commission – Studio Grant Recipient, Nashville, Tennessee
COLLECTIONS
The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, Louisiana
Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina
Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia
Collection of Jon and Tracey Stewart
MCC Collection, Nashville, Tennessee
Ayers Foundation Collection, Nashville, Tennessee
Collection of Lucinda Bunnen
Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Atlanta, Georgia
Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, Tennessee
Christoph Merian Foundation, Basel, Switzerland
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Terminus, Atlanta, Georgia
RCA Records, Nashville, Tennessee
King and Spalding, Atlanta, Georgia
Fulton County Arts Council, Atlanta, Georgia
Sprint PCS Communications Company, Kansas City, Missouri
Coral Energy Incorporated, Calgary, Canada
Progress Energy Incorporated, Raleigh, North Carolina
Monarch Incorporated, Atlanta, Georgia
Dollar General Corporation, Nashville, Tennessee
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sirlin, Deanna, “John Folsom: In Dialogue” The Art Section, October, 2020
Feaster, Felicia, “Two artists at Hathaway look at nature in its diversity”, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, November 29, 2016
Brantley, Rebecca, “Hathaway’s ‘Cosmic Nostalgia’ and ‘Framework and View’, bond to the natural world”, Arts ATL, December 5, 2016
Bookhardt, D. Eric, “Works by David Armentor and John Folsom”, The Gambit, July 16, 2013
Unconventional: Nashville's Music City Center (The Convention Center Authority of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson Center © 2013)
Oxford American, Summer 2013, P33, (Reproduction)
Jones, Michele, “Anodyne Frontiers”, The Tennessean, June 1, 2012
Siegel, Jerry, “Facing South: Portraits of Southern Artists”, P98
Feaster, Felicia, “John Folsom’s Spooky Southern Landscapes at Marietta Cobb Museum of Art”, Arts ATL, 2011
Outlaw, Adrienne, “Southern Charm With a Twist”, Arts Now Nashville, September 2011
Ridley, Jim, Critics Picks, Nashville Scene, September 2007
LaFerriere, Catherine, John Folsom: Recent Works, ArtScope Magazine, September 2007
Cole-Miller, Julie, Southern Accents, September-October 2006
Hoppen, Stephanie, Picture Perfect: Collecting Art and Photography, 2004 London: Aurum Press Limited.
Architectural Digest, “Art across America”, May 2003
Ryesky, Helen, “Painterly Landscapes at Pentimenti”, Art Matters, November 2000
Wall, Donna Dorian, “At Home in the Landscape”, Southern Accents, Sept.-Oct.2000, P114
New American Paintings, June - July 2000
Smith, Terri, Plus Four, Art Papers, March – April 2000
EDUCATION
1990 Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois,
Bachelor of Fine Arts – Cinema and Photography