Naive John - Life

Life

Naive John was born Ian Wylie in Poole, Dorset, his family moving to Glasgow when he was two years of age. He attended Cumbernauld High School, Glasgow 1973–79. During the period 1979–83 he took part in a youth training scheme, where amongst other things he played cards. In 1983 he was accepted without academic qualifications as an exceptional student at Greys School of Art, Aberdeen, but was later expelled. Within two years he had sold a painting Yellow Envy to Edwin Morgan, Scotland's Poet Laureate and won an award for his short experimental animation film Phobia. In 1998 he fled to Liverpool after a homophobic knife attack. Intensive psychotherapy followed during 1998 in an attempt to come to terms with his past traumatic experiences. He has since been diagnosed as suffering from dysthymia. Throughout his periods of illness he continued to produce drawings and paintings albeit in limited numbers. Ex-Vaselines front woman Frances McKee commissioned the artist to create several CD covers for her band Suckle.

In 2003 he started a BA (Hons) Art History course at Liverpool John Moores University, where he won the Susan Cotton Travel Scholarship. He adopted the name Naive John in 2004 and founded the Liverpool Stuckist group. He adopted the pseudonym Naive John as a means of distancing himself from mainstream artistic concerns of being "relevant", "fashionable" and "cutting edge". In 2004 his work was included in The Stuckists Punk Victorian show at the Walker Art Gallery during the 2004 Liverpool Biennial. This exhibition was a definitive showing of the Stuckist oeuvre at a national gallery and marked a key point in the development of the art movement. In October 2006 he curated and exhibited in Triumph of Stuckism. His painting The Other was the central image featured on promotional literature and attracted the attention of influential collector David Roberts. In 2007 Naive John was invited to exhibit his work as part of the Fellow Travellers touring group exhibition at Salford Museum alongside Holly Johnson and BP Portrait Award winner Sadie Lee. Salford Museum commissioned the artist in 2008 to produce public art to display on billboard spaces in Salford as part of Walkabout; a joint project with The Lowry. He will be exhibiting in the next Fellow Travellers show which will take place in Korpfulstadir, Reykjavík, Iceland July 2008.