John Fitzgerald’s life could be described as Jackson Pollock meets “American Gothic.”

Growing up in New York, John Fitzgerald made his first painting in response to a competition sponsored by Q-Tip when he was in eighth grade. Using Q-Tips instead of paintbrushes, he won the second place award and was inspired to continue his new endeavor.

In the following years, Fitzgerald painted whenever possible, exploring a wide range of media. He frequented New York City's East Village, surrounding himself with artists and studying the works of abstract painters such as Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning and Wassily Kandinsky. The energetic and eclectic life in and around The Big Apple served as inspiration for Fitzgerald's own evolving art, a mixed-media combination of living colors and asymmetrical lines.

Throughout the '80s and early'90s, while supporting himself as a steamfitter, Fitzgerald continued to paint and had gallery showings in New York City, Dallas and Detroit. In 1994 he and his wife Diane, moved to Western North Carolina to pursue a less chaotic lifestyle. Painting took a back seat initially as he settled into a new career as a property manager, first at a fishing lodge and then at a camp. Friends and acquaintances saw the paintings that decorated his home and urged him to pick up the brush again. In 2002, Fitzgerald returned to his studio once more and unearthed a fresh, all-consuming passion for art.

Working in acrylic and mixed media, Fitzgerald says his abstract creations now come more freely than ever. "As soon as I make that first stroke, I get tunnel vision and nothing distracts me," he says. "This work comes from within, from a vast and wild place, so powerful that I can't contain it. There's no effort anymore. I used to try too hard to make a painting…now I just surrender myself and let it take me where it will."