John Mattos began his career in his teenage years; he had always drawn pictures and was not ready to stop. This led him to pursue a degree from the Art Center College of Design in Southern California. Mattos knew he wanted to illustrate using airbrush; he was seeing it as a way to make pure photographs of ideas. Part of Mattos’ interest in working with airbrushes came from his comfort with the hardware surrounding the demanding craft; such as air regulators. Airbrush hardware reminded him of the hardware used on his family’s dairy farm in Empire, California.
Mattos says, “This was 1971 and all that Chrome palm-tree bubble-gum bent-knuckle realism did not exist…yet…,” Now, 49 years later, his medium of choice is Adobe Illustrator. He describes Illustrator as being cold, simplistic, and having a want to provide a sameness of edges and surfaces. Mattos feels that getting some humanity and a “touched by a human hand,” feeling into his artwork is now the most difficult and demanding part of his work.
