John Comer grew up in Southern California, swimming and surfing on the beaches of Orange County. He began painting after receiving a box of paints for his thirteenth birthday.  His paintings of urban scenes, of freeways and skyscrapers, share the color and space of his other landscapes, creating what Comer calls a "synthesis of culture and land" in an area that "is constantly in the process of tearing down and rebuilding." He paints the landscape as it has always been and the landscape as it is being changed.