John Stuart Berger’s work is an odd assortment of contradicting ideas and styles. He draws from both fine art and lowbrow and creates images that seem both naïve and sophisticated. Sometimes a painting begins with a detailed plan and other times he improvises. “My hope is that by varying the way I construct my paintings [it] gives each individual work a slightly different feel,” he says. 

The paintings are held together by his imaginary animals, a colorful blend of Where the Wild Things Are, Salvador Dali and Hieronymus Bosch. Berger also credits comic books, natural history guides and engravings as a source of inspiration and a catalyst for the question “What if?” Bold, undiluted colors give his work a cartoonish feel, but just enough to avoid becoming pure pop.

Berger’s work is humorous and ridiculous, yet it retains a level of seriousness in rendering the phantasms of his fantasy land. Mean, decapitated bunnies with mouse ears, goofy-looking monsters that appear mentally challenged, and angry, brain-exposed, spiders inhabit this strangely innocent dream world. Metaphor is not easily read into Berger’s work, and one is left with only a very compelling glimpse into a world ruled by imagination. A world that exists only because of Berger’s refusal to believe that it cannot.