Artist Bio

John D. Woolsey grew up in southern Wisconsin where he spent much of his time exploring the rich natural world around him. At age thirteen, he started to paint from nature. As a teenager he was an avid bird-watcher and at the age 16 had his first job as a scientific artist. His art has explored the natural world since then, first painting the landscape broadly and then focusing on its myriad details. With the natural world as his subject, his work explores the themes of the scale of time, upheaval, dissolution, transformation, and renewal.

John studied art and biology at the University of Wisconsin (BS, Art) and painting and at the University of Pennsylvania (BFA, MFA) where he studied with Neil Welliver, Alex Katz, Elaine de Kooning, Hitoshi Nakazato, James Brooks, Yvonne Jacquette, Rackstraw Downes and others. 

He taught at the University of the Arts and the Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. He had a long career as a scientific illustrator and a developer of art programs for many best-selling college science texts, and he developed science animations and interactive multimedia projects in the life sciences. 

During his fine-art career, he has had over 20 one-person exhibitions and exhibited in many group shows throughout the US and internationally. His work is represented in many pubic and private collections. 

John maintains a studio in Philadelphia and has had a summer studio in a small village in coastal Maine for many years.