John Cannon is a Nashville native, growing up in East Nashville. He graduated from Belmont College with a BA in English in 1974. From 1975 to 1978, he studied art at the University of Tennessee, Nashville. John left art and returned to literature, earning a Master’s Degree in Literature from Middle Tennessee State University in 1980.

After a brief stint in education, John entered the Nashville School of Law in 1982. He graduated and was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1985.

John’s philosophy of art is straightforward: “Painting, the use of color, value and shading, seems to be the best way of all the arts to convey an emotional image to the audience. The expression in color of the artist’s individual impression of a subject is incredibly intimate. Viewing a work of art, in any medium or style, is the most direct way to experience the internal landscape of another human being. Art, therefore, for me, is a visceral sharing experience.”

“In this view of art, the artist becomes both the performer and the performance, and the receptive viewer shares the moment’s vision with the artist. Though transient, the shared vision is a complete experience of the human connectedness.”