Before the TV commercials and the ad agencies, a boy lived on Ke Iki Beach on Oahu. That's where he fell in love with the ocean.  By the time the family moved to California, surfing was all the rage.  

John Holm and his buddies in Burlingame used to drive over the hill to Half Moon Bay and down to Santa Cruz with their boards in the back of his fathers pickup. It was a golden time, California in the 1960’s.  But it would all soon change.  

After graduating from the Art Center in LA, John moved north and got a job in advertising.  Within a year he got his draft notice. The Navy trained him to be a pilot and he flew Grumman S-2 submarine trackers. He fought the war in Monterey and never saw a sub. 

Four years later he was on Madison Avenue, then partners in a commercial production company. 35 years in a crazy business filled with crazy people, but he never forgot the images of the Hawaiian and California coastlines.

A few years ago he began painting again, developing a fluid, impressionistic style that captures the harmonious affair between surfer and sea. He moves beyond the literal “perfect wave” and straight into the soul of surfing.

John’s paintings have been featured in Surfers Journal, 

Club of the Waves and Liquid Salt.

@holmsurf