We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Johnny Haure a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Johnny, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The idea came to me during the Covid pandemic, I was feeling cooped up and tied down at home with not much to do in regards to creativity, so I decided to break out some extra paint I had laying around and I splattered it all over my bedroom wall. I allowed the fluidity of the paint to take over me, becoming a conduit getting it from the can to the wall in whatever shape or direction it wanted to move. As I stood back I realized what I had painted actually expressed the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that had been stirring inside of me aching to be set free.

Shortly after painting that mural, my mom wanted to help me out so she sent me a kit of acrylic pour paint to play around with. I ordered some canvases to paint on and soon thereafter I would be shipping off my custom made painted canvases to all corners of the country.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I make customized abstract paintings using acrylic paint. I play around with different mediums; using spray paint, as well as other products to raise or lower the viscosity of my paints to create different flows and textures. A lot of my work comes out in style very similar to Jackson Pollock. I have made pieces of all different shapes and sizes, and always love to take on new challenges.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the main lessons I’ve had to unlearn is not to expect perfection. Or rather the idea of what a perfect product would look like in the end. So often in my work, the paint takes on a mind of its own. It is a constant ebb and flow of sticking hard to my ideas and using what actually comes out onto the piece. Because of this, I have to be flexible in my ideas of how I want the product to look or feel so that I can take what I am given, and modify it realign with my ideas.

This is a recurring lesson that I constantly have to unlearn or relearn every time I make a new piece, on more than one occasion I have found myself almost paralyzed with an inability to put more paint to the canvas because I don’t like how it is turning out. I constantly have to remind myself that it is only paint; it can be repainted, removed or modified as needed. Some of the coolest parts of some of my pieces have come from areas that I originally hated, but I took some time, worked with what the piece was giving me and added to it.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I make all of my pieces, each one is custom made, you will not find another piece exactly like it. I mix all of the paints myself, using different high quality acrylics until I get them to the desired color and consistency. The time it takes to make each painting can vary anywhere from between a few hours to several days. Each piece when purchased gets hand packaged and shipped to its home.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @jhaure
• Facebook: Johnny Haure

Image Credits

Johnny Haure