Paintings and Assemblages by John Mellencamp

Before John Mellencamp embarked on a musical career, he seriously contemplated pursuing a career as a painter. While both outlets offered him creative expression, music knocked a bit louder and so started the path that made him the acclaimed singer-songwriter we have known for over four decades. Mellencamp never gave up his artistic aspirations however, continuing to paint as he wrote songs, recorded in the studio, and toured. His large-scale oil portraits and mixed-media assemblages document America’s heart and soul, revealing unsettling but beautiful truths with an anti-establishment frown and a rich sense of narrative. John Mellencamp: American Paintings and Assembleages is the definitive survey—curated by the artist himself—of Mellencamp’s oeuvre as an expressionist painter, grabbing our attention through the canvas. For example, Mellencamp’s 2005 ode to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. titled Martin Luther King shines a spotlight on how society has fallen short on King’s renowned drea