Draft:John Brosio

John Brosio (born 1967) is an American painter from South Pasadena, California. His work focuses on the relationships between humans and nature, and the contrast of beauty and disaster.

Early life and education
John Brosio was born in 1967 in South Pasadena, Southern California. He is of Italian descent. Brosio was educated in art at the University of California, Davis and the Art Center College of Design in Pasedena, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of California, Davis in 1991. At the Art Center College of Design, Brosio studied under Richard Bunkall, Ray Turner, and David Limrite. At the University of California, Davis, Brosio studied under Wayne Thiebaud, David Hollowell, and Robert Arneson. His original aspirations were working in film and movie special effects, and this cinematic lean appears in his art. He interned at the Lucasfilm Industrial Light & Magic company's Creature Shop in San Rafael from February to May of 1990, with the desire to work on the Star Wars films.

Style and process
His paintings largely deal with the small scale and relationship of humanity (represented in images of suburbia and brides for example) in contrast to the enormity of nature, such as against natural disasters like tornadoes, as well as cosmology, particularly the Holographic Principle, resulting in a surreal style. He first came to understand the relationship of humanity and nature through research and storm chasing through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas for three seasons. His work has been described as "anxious realism", with a focus on spectacle and the contrast between beauty and disaster.

Brosio's process involves utilizing references from things such as photographs and videos, creating thumbnails, and synthesizing the material into a final work. He utilizes oil paints in his paintings, and his palette is largely inspired by Wayne Thiebaud. Brosio uses bristle filbert brushes extensively on canvas, and also board. He uses Winsor & Newton paints, as well as paints from Old Holland. He coats his paintings with Galkyd Lite (from Gamblin) mixed with a cold wax medium often, or a Gamvar varnish.

Exhibitions and work
Brosio's exhibitions include the solo show of his tornado paintings at the National Academy of Sciences Museum by the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences opening in October of 2008 and closing in January of 2009, as well as exhibitions at Sue Greenwood Fine Art gallery,  Arcadia Contemporary galleries in California and New York, the John Natsoulas Gallery, the Castelli Art Space, the Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City, La Luz de Jesus gallery, the Clement C. Maxwell Library at Bridgewater State University, the Grunwald Gallery of Art at the Indiana University Bloomington, and the Laguna College of Art and Design (LCAD) Gallery. Brosio's artwork was additionally shown at the LA Art Show in 2016 through an Arcadia booth, where he sold two paintings to J.J. Abrams. His work has also been collected by Mike Mignola, Dave Grohl, and Norman Lear.

His artwork was featured on the cover of the 2021 album Mammoth WVH, named Fatigue 2, displaying a large crab terrorizing a city. The meaning of the subject of the painting generated discussion over Twitter. Fatigue 2 was also the cover image of "Songs of Profit, Songs of Loss: Private Equity, Wealth, and Inequality" by Daniel Scott Souleles.

He has served as an instructor of MFA art classes in painting and drawing  and as a mentor for the MFA program at the Laguna College of Art and Design. He has also worked as a Visual Arts Chair at Idyllwild Arts Academy.