Who is JR?
John Ryan Hulett (February 10, 1978 – Present) is an American bank clerk and artist. He is of English, Irish, and Scottish heritage on his father’s side and German (Volga/Germans from Russia) heritage on his mother’s. His father mostly worked various part-time odd jobs in Missouri, often paid under the table so as not to require the paying of child support ordered by the court, but the last few years of his life he got sober and kept a job assisting in a nursing home before his untimely death in 2005 at the age of 50. His mother spend most of her life working as an architectural drafter and building inspector and currently lives in Florida. JR has held many occupations over his lifetime but has spent the last two decades working with check processing, adjustments, fraud, records, and research. He has been an artist since his first sales in the 1990s but has struggled to become a full-time professional for multiple reasons (financial, social, and medical). He spends most of his time with his family while pursuing art in the moments he can.
Early Life
JR was born in California but moved to Missouri, then Kansas, and finally Nebraska by the time he was 6 years old, living with various family members (at this time his parents divorced and he lived exclusively with his mother and two siblings). His family was Catholic, and while he would attend some religious festivals and ceremonies for others he himself never professed much faith. Growing up poor, he remembered days when all he would eat was food provided at school and of wearing torn clothing and shoes with holes. He was always inspired and strengthened by his mother, who he watched stand up to abusive men and fight against odds to put herself through college after dropping out of high school when she became pregnant. He later incorporated this ideal of the strong feminine and of “the goddess” in his art.
In the spring of 1993, early in the morning while delivering newspapers, JR heard someone from the street cry out “What the hell is that?!”. He turned to see a man in a car pointing toward the sky. Turning around to look he saw a large, black, triangular craft hovering above them both. When he looked back to the street the man was gone, and when he looked back up the craft took off at incredible speed. He also claims to have seen what are commonly called “Grey” aliens on multiple occasions.
A mediocre student in high school, he was advised to sign up with the military and in his senior year he joined the Marine Corp Delayed Entry Program but later left, right before boot camp, due to an incident that opened his eyes to what he was joining. During a run in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska he was tasked with carrying the colors at the front of the line but at one point had to decide whether to run into a group of people, into oncoming traffic, or to dip the colors in order to go under a tree. He chose to latter and was reprimanded. He realized there were going to be moments when he’d be given orders that might not make sense, or could be contradictory, and decided he wouldn’t be able to act truly in such conditions and so left the program.
After high school, with no funds or scholarships or grades to offer, he began working at various jobs including park custodian, dish washer, and fry cook, eventually landing at KFC working up to the position of Assistant Manager. But when an opportunity came up to work at the Nebraska Service Center for federal immigration in Lincoln, Nebraska he jumped at it. For a time he was living what felt like the perfect middle class dream: wife, home, career, etc. but one year his wife left and his father committed suicide. Feeling alone and vulnerable he fell into a deep year-long depression which eventually led him to dedicate more time to himself and his art. He quit his job at Immigration, loaded all his possessions into his car, and drove from Nebraska to Washington State to begin a new life in Seattle.
Education
Having done poorly in high school he endeavored to do better in college. Initially he had tried his hand at the Fine Art program at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, but his work schedule and his color blindness kept him back academically and he dropped out after a year. Having tried and failed to go to multiple two-year schools he finally landed at Seattle Central College where he earned a nearly 4.0 GPA and was a member of Phi Theta Kappa. He then transferred to the University of Washington’s Art History program where he graduated in 2013 with honors, was on the Dean’s List every semester, and with a 3.85 GPA.
During his schooling in Seattle he used his free time to paint and show his work, mostly at local coffee shops but also at small galleries on campus and always selling at least one piece per show which encouraged him to continue. He would also volunteer at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) Gallery which showed established local artists and offered art pieces for rent.
After graduation, however, he found it difficult to find work and so did whatever job he could including servicing office plants and housekeeping in a hotel. Eventually he landed his current job at a local Western Washington financial institution. He works there full time in order to afford to do his artwork and for the medical benefits keeping his wife alive (who has been fighting cancer since 2021). He has attempted to return to school a number of times but issues within his personal life and family medical drama has made this difficult.
Artwork
JR’s early work was very simplistic, including basic shapes and prime colors (due to a lack of talent combined with colorblindness). But some elements in his later work would show up then including landscapes and satellites.
His current style includes backgrounds which consist of diluted tempera paint sprayed onto canvas, with solid foreground figures. These foreground figures generally consist of landscape elements (mountains, hills, lakes, clouds, etc.), satellites, and images of figurines from Neolithic European art. According to JR these represent our past, present, and future. His work often contains scientific elements like geometric stratification, communication/scanning via waves, and the hydrologic water table. He exclusively uses Blick brand premium tempera paint and signs his work with Sharpie markers (and is always open to sponsorships).
A few of JR’s favorite and most influential artists include Giorgio De Chirico, Paul Klee, Georges Braque, Leonora Carrington, Joan Miro, Lawren Harris, Thomas Cole, Wassily Kandinsky, among many others.
Personal Life
In 2021 JR’s wife of 4 years was diagnosed with cancer. This has obviously affected his work. He was quoted saying “All of this is happening alongside a very grounded, painful reality: my wife has cancer. That fact threads through everything I do and has made sustained artistic practice incredibly difficult—emotionally, physically, and financially. Yet it has also stripped away any illusion that art is a luxury; for me, making this work is an act of resilience, love, and devotion in the midst of uncertainty. When someone brings my work into their space, I hope they feel both the cosmic and the personal, and that the art serves as a quiet instrument of empowerment—a way to symbolically rearrange their relationship to technology, to illness, to fear, and to the unknown, and to claim a bit more of their own inner territory in the process.”
JR lives with his wife, daughter, and mini-dachshund ‘Maisy’ in Edgewood, Washington, just outside of Tacoma.
JR Hulett Landscapes 