About

John Skidgel creates fluid shapes paired with color, texture, and dimension. Drawing from personal experience, his work connotes multiple interpretations yet remains concise. He combines drawing, painting, and hand-tool woodworking with computer-controlled manufacturing methods.

Biography

Born 1971 in Portsmouth, Virginia. Raised in Bangor, Maine. Lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The artist grew up in a mixed-heritage and blue-collar family in Bangor, Maine. His mom is Puerto Rican, his dad is a Maine native, and his two older siblings were both born with special needs. While he excelled in math and science, his mother’s creative practice led him to study art. With no museums nearby and the World Wide Web long in the distance, he checked out art books and magazines from the library and delivered newspapers to purchase art supplies through mail-order catalogs.

He graduated with a BA in Studio Art from Bowdoin College, and in his senior year, he studied Graphic Design at the Rhode Island School of Design. A formative experience was an internship at Eastman Kodak’s Center for Creative Imaging in 1992 because it introduced him to digital design tools. Upon graduation, he worked in small design studios designing projects for IBM, Harvard, and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco before moving to California in 1996 to work for Netscape. He then went on to Shutterfly, Adobe, Google, and YouTube. He holds ten utility and design patents and has designed experiences that billions use daily. He is currently head of design at a cloud security and networking startup, Ubyon.

work resume (pdf)

Colophon

The source code for this site was developed by the artist using Next.js and Tailwind CSS. It is hosted on Vercel. The font is Work Sans. All photographs are by the artist unless noted.