— About
JOHN DEMPSEY
Urban abstraction shaped by graffiti, typography and the visual language of Chicago
As a Chicago-based contemporary artist, I make abstract paintings influenced by the marks, fragments and accidental compositions found throughout the city. Graffiti, street typography and weathered walls become starting points for paintings that move between structure and spontaneity, control and disorder.
The Art of "The Line"
My work often begins with the line — the kind of spontaneous mark found in graffiti, handwriting and the visual noise of the city. I’m interested in the way a line can wander, collide, disappear and reappear across a painting. Using hand-cut stencils, spray paint, acrylic and oil, I build these marks into layers of geometric and organic forms. The process is partly controlled and partly intuitive, allowing the painting to develop its own rhythm as I work.
Between Control and Chaos
I rarely begin a painting knowing exactly where it will end. I establish a structure, then allow accidents, gestures and unexpected relationships to change its direction. Organic shapes collide with more deliberate geometric forms, while layers are added, obscured and sometimes painted over entirely. That tension between intention and accident has become an important part of how I work.
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Born in Evanston, Illinois, and raised in the Chicago area. I received an art scholarship by the Woman’s Club of Evanston and attended Ohio University where I studied art under Aethelred Eldridge. My painting "The Great American Landscape" won first place in Chicago's Art Loop Open - the city's first public voting contest, and a giant check that made me feel like a golf pro. Thanks Chicago! CV upon request.
BILLY TOKYO
Figurative painting shaped by the city, cartooning and the Chicago Imagists
Billy Tokyo is the figurative alter ego I created as a counterpoint to my abstract work as John Dempsey. The paintings are built from simplified figures, geometric forms, architecture, transportation and fragments of urban life, creating imagined cities that feel familiar without depicting any one particular place.
I’m interested in how far a figure can be simplified and reconstructed while still remaining unmistakably human. Rather than working toward realism, I use shape, pattern and color to suggest personalities, movement and relationships. The people in these paintings become part of the architecture around them — another element in the visual rhythm of the city.
From Influence to Individual Voice
Billy Tokyo began as a more commercial experiment. The early work was largely vector-based, and the style found its way into projects for Lollapalooza and the Chicago Cubs. It was graphic, colorful and deliberately playful — closer to illustration and design than the paintings I would eventually create as Billy Tokyo.
Over time, Billy Tokyo became less commercial and much more personal. The work moved away from vector illustration and toward painting, drawing increasingly from the Chicago Imagists and their embrace of color, humor, unconventional figures and unapologetically individual visual languages. Those influences eventually became something of my own: imagined urban worlds populated by figures, buildings, vehicles, symbols and patterns that coexist within the same slightly off-kilter universe.
Contact
Studio visits are available by appointment. For inquiries about available works, pricing, exhibitions or studio visits, please use the contact form below.
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Read John Griswold’s profile of John Dempsey and Billy Tokyo in The Common Reader.
CHICAGO STUDIO
355 North Laflin Street, Chicago, IL 60607
Fulton Market District