John Selburg was born and raised in Peoria, Illinois. He holds a BFA from Bradley University (2006) and an MFA from the University of Missouri-Columbia (2009). He is Associate Professor of Studio Art and Gallery Director at William Woods University, in addition to maintaining a prolific studio practice and exhibit schedule. Working primarily in charcoal, ink, and watercolor on paper, Selburg brings imaginative forms to life through a combination of gestural mark-making and meticulous rendering. In Mirage, his surreal new drawings depict invented creatures that seem to inhabit a steamy, distant future. These strange and elegant figures, suspended in dreamlike landscapes, feel like visual folklore—fables or metaphors for our own time, where the lines between imagination, memory, and reality begin to blur.
