John Kime was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1967 and has lived in the desert Southwest all of his life. During ten years with Phoenix Art Press, John worked in all aspects of marketing and frame design. He started as executive assitance to the company president and moved through marketing and exhibition design to become the company’s exhibitions director. He initiated their show procedures and set up exhibitons all over the world: in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Hong Kong, as well as the twice-annual world design market at High Point, North Carolina.

John began painting as a hobby at Phoenix Art Press. Being surrounded by art and working closely with other artists gave him the desire and the support to develop his own visual language, and his own vision began to emerge. John sometimes still paints under the name of his alter ego, Zak Gibson.

John’s love of the desert is obvious in his painting and mixed media art works. His work is clearly influenced by the textures, colors and shapes of the landscape around him. He explains his work this way: "In my paintings, I want to break the barrier between painting and sculpture. I have always found myself drawn to sculpture and three dimensional art . Through the use of texture and color, I form a vision of the third dimension. I find myself coming up with ideas which can only be realized through the building up of layer upon layer of paint and texture, and finally I impose structure onto the canvas, creating a surface which is both sculptural and two dimensional."