John Burt Sanders is an artist from Arcade, New York. He completed his MFA in painting and drawing at Ohio University in 2011 and earned a BFA in painting and art history at State University of New York at Fredonia in 2007. Sanders has been awarded an Artist Opportunity Grant from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council in 2014. In 2014 he participated in an artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. In 2019, his work appeared in the Northeast edition of New American Paintings, issue # 140.  Sanders currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pa.

John’s paintings tend toward formal abstraction and focus on simple formal visual elements (color, texture, composition). They vary in degrees of visible subtlety and overload. For example, while one may seem to only show slight shifts in color variation, another is dominated by high contrast colors that are dizzying to view for a duration. His intention is to produce work that engages the viewer in the act of looking while emphasizing that looking is an active process that can be felt (physically, mentally and emotionally). To that end, his paintings do not produce any immediate recognizable imagery but instead present the viewer with an image suggestive of many images. John believes this potential for many readings is crucial for creating new meanings and highlighting existing connections.