Part meditative tutorial, part fireside chat, each episode finds artist John Lurie ensconced at his worktable, where he hones his intricate watercolor techniques and shares his reflections on what he’s learned about life.
Watching it is an enjoyably shaggy and weirdly beatific experience: each twenty-minute episode is a veritable world unto itself, one that provides a window into Lurie’s inimitable, topsy-turvy mindscape.The guy’s stubborn commitment to his own beguiling, one-of-a-kind ethos – the unpretentious and utterly unmistakable way in which Lurie views the world and its inhabitants – is its own badge of integrity. If you submit to its tranquil rhythms, Painting With John is as comfortable as a sit-down talk with a wise, funny friend you haven’t seen in far too long.
“Painting With John” is another kind of creation altogether: a hypnotic, meandering, surreality-TV walk into the knotty jungle of Lurie’s mind that explores living as an art form in itself. The series, written and directed by Lurie and soundtracked with his music, opens with an overhead shot of the greenery surrounding his Caribbean island home. The viewer sails above the verdant canopy, moving closer, closer, too close, until the camera drone that Lurie is piloting crashes into a tree. The opening is a metaphor for the series, which is part tutorial, part autobiographical video essay.
