Abstractions of land, seen from above.

Work built up slowly — layer over layer, until the surface holds its own terrain.

John C. Stennis is an artist working in acrylic, oil, and mixed media across the Mountain West. His large-scale paintings begin in the language of maps and aerial photography — contour, watershed, ridgeline, the abstract geometry of land read from above — and move toward something closer to memory than to record.

The pieces are layered and accretive, built over weeks. Color is laid down, buried, and recovered; edges are drawn and dissolved. The result carries the influence of Calder and the mid-century abstractionists: balance held in tension, natural form distilled to its essential gesture.

Trained as an architect, Stennis brings a structural eye to abstraction — a sense of section and elevation beneath the surface. The work is not for sale at this time and is shown here as a record of an evolving practice. Commission inquiries are welcome.