John Tursi

New York City, NY

“I always wanted to be a famous artist”

John Tursi’s art is a stream of consciousness made visible. His flow of creativity originates in the book that he embodies and pours onto canvases every day. Tursi’s art tells the stories of life: love, joy, pain, and suffering.  He commonly refers to his art as his Book of Dreams --utilizing the radiant spectrum of rainbow colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Tursi’s artistic language in an ever varying interplay of neatly framed shapes. He frequently uses Spiro graphs and French curves to wind the visionary forms into their elegant lines. 

In addition to his drawings, Tursi is also well known for his large wire sculptures that he meticulously puts together day after day in his art studio at The Living Museum,  an art studio dedicated to presenting the art produced by patients at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, in Queens, NY. The skilled son of a car mechanic, he uses many different kinds of props and castaways. He builds art pieces from coat hangers, wire, nails, bottle-corks, soft drink cans, tongue depressors, cleaning mops, cooking pots, chains, tree-trunks, branches, strait-jackets, and strips of wallpaper.

(excerpts of this bio are used with permission from: JOHN TURSI: The Living Museum Edition, 2010 by Alexandra Plettenberg)