John Goodwin’a work, alive with movement and color, captures the spirit of the Delta and the world beyond, blending his love of art, music, and storytelling.
If you’ve ever thought you heard blues music in the distance or felt the urge to dance while visiting an art museum or walking along the Hot Springs Greenway Trail, you might have been viewing the work of an artist named John Goodwin. His paintings seem to stir with music and motion as varied as his imagination and the scenes captured in his travels across Arkansas and beyond.
John’s interest in communicating through art and language began early. As a sophomore at El Dorado High School in south Arkansas, he and a couple of classmates published an “underground” newspaper called The Renegade in the attic of one of the local churches. It was rich with satirical humor and featured John’s recreations of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics but only ran five issues before school authorities shut it down.
John went on to study art at Louisiana Tech University, graduating with a degree in graphic design, but stopped creating art for thirty-five years while building his family and working in sales for a Little Rock graphic design company. Later, while working for an advertising agency, he served as the lead account executive for the Fort Smith area’s visitors guide, regularly staying in Fort Smith to call on local businesses.
In 2017, John was attending an arts festival in Little Rock when he came across a vendor booth selling black velvet-style portraits of musicians. He quietly commented to his teenage son, Trevor, that they didn’t look very good. With a smirk, Trevor said, “I guess you think you could do better?” John thought, yes, I used to be able to. Trevor continued, “So, why don’t you paint me a Bob Marley?”
A few days later, John went to his garage, found his old paintings and a piece of art board, and secretly painted a portrait of Bob Marley. When he finished, he felt a sense of satisfaction, and decided to give Trevor his first painting since college as a Christmas gift, a thank-you for challenging him. Since John had two sons, he painted Johnny Cash as a gift for his other son, Barrett. That year, there were many surprised looks around the Christmas tree, and John’s passion for painting was reignited.
John’s love of music, and respect for those who create it, became a focus of his work from that Christmas forward. As a longtime fan of comic books, he began to add brightly colored shapes and musical notes flying through the air to express sound and emotion, creating a blend of fantasy and realism in his art. It didn’t take long for John to realize that his unusual paintings were finding an audience and catching the eyes of music lovers and art enthusiasts.
As an original Arkansas River Blues Society member, John volunteered with annual blues festivals on the Arkansas River in Little Rock and North Little Rock. John has a quiet manner about him, and it’s easy to imagine him slipping into blues clubs and rural honky-tonks while using his artist’s eye to capture the culture and personalities of the musicians he hears.
In 1986, John attended the first King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena. He dreamed of one day having his art featured on the festival’s annual poster. Though his dream was set to come true in 2021, the festival was canceled due to the pandemic. Thankfully, his artwork was showcased in 2022, and John would go on to win the poster contest in 2023. Today, his paintings are part of the permanent collection at the Delta Cultural Center Museum in Helena.
During that same period, John also had paintings selected for display in 2022 and 2023 on the Hot Springs Greenway Trail as part of the Hot Springs Area Cultural Alliance’s outdoor exhibit, Art Moves. In 2024, his painting, Red’s, was selected for inclusion in the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum’s exhibition entitled, Inclusive. Red’s was then selected for display on the Times Square jumbotrons in New York City as part of the Harmony & Diversity exhibit by HMVC Gallery New York.
When asked about his increasing notoriety, John noted, “I never dreamed that my art would be so well received because it’s so much different than traditional gallery art.” But the recognition just keeps coming. He recently had a painting selected for the Food Story 2024 Exhibition, a portrait painting chosen for the Portraits 2024 Exhibition, and a landscape for the Scenic 2024 show sponsored by the international online art gallery, Gallerium. John recently learned that his painting, Dreamland, was chosen to be included in the 50th issue (September 24) of Astonish magazine, a monthly art magazine with a circulation of over one hundred thousand.
Does he worry about running out of inspiration? John says, “I just hope I live long enough to paint all the ideas I already have!” John knows it’s never too late to reignite your creative gifts, even those that fall to the wayside while meeting life’s family responsibilities. As John says, “Just begin! And enjoy the journey. You never know where it might lead.”
To view John’s art, visit his website johngoodwinsartworld.com, or the Fort Smith Regional Museum of Art.
