John Dowling Fine Art Portraits

From 1981 to 2023, John Dowling owned and operated an informal portrait and photojournalist natural light studio. This allowed him to walk long distances. He coped with a then-incurable gene mutation that was destroying his arteries. In 2023 Dowling was one of the first to receive Repatha, a cure for Dowling’s gene mutation. During John Dowling’s fight to save his life, he brought his camera with him. He took millions of photographs from around the world. This helped him to cope through art therapy. His walks were extremely painful, and intermittent claudication was a terrible side effect of his illness.

Intermittent claudication is pain affecting the calf. It less commonly affects the thigh and buttocks. This pain is induced by exercise and relieved by rest. Symptom severity varies from mild to severe, John Dowling’s pain was severe. Intermittent claudication occurs as a result of muscle ischemia during exercise caused by obstruction to arterial flow. Art therapy saved John Dowling’s life. He could not have walked painful marathons daily without his camera. Art led the way. As Dowling recovered from these daily walks, he photo-finished and retouched these photos into masterpieces. He later shared them for free with the respective subjects on social media. Eventually, he shared over 50,000 custom-finished portraits of people who smiled at Dowling when he asked them “WHERE’S THE LOVE?” The love Dowling received helped him. It enabled him to take another step in his hope of prolonging his life. He wanted to keep going until there was a cure. Here are a small sample of Dowling’s portraits. John Dowling wants to open a Museum. It will showcase his art and photos. It will also highlight the smiles of all the people: models, actors, and celebrities who made this possible. John Dowling often says art therapy saved his life. He is really saying that the people who smiled at him saved his life when he was in torturous pain. These portraits are in memory of all of them.