John's painting focuses on those elemental forces that shift and shape the landscape.
Water whipped and whirled by the wind cascades down the barren mountain slopes.

A skeletal tree clings stubbornly to a rock face. Sand and debris are scattered by breakers and beached on the shore while reed grasses strain and bend on desperate dunes.

"Always a howling wind, a threatening storm cloud. Chaotic moments captured in freeze frame."There is a sense of earthiness, of elemental forces at work permeating this collection of paintings."

Hurley is concerned with the interaction of the land and the elements, evoking a sense of the land rather than a topigraphical description of the landscape. Picture titles serve to further enhance this feeling. Titles such as 'Scattered Seeds', 'Copper Bog','Wild Place', and 'Atlantic Swell'
 
Hurley graduated from Ireland's National College of Art & Design in 1984. In the intervening years he has exhibited widely and has had numerous successful solo shows. Since moving to Kerry in 1995 his work has blossomed and his intuitive, abstract impasto style has become much sought after. His eleventh One-Man Show in 2003 at Cill Rialaig, County Kerry was opened by Ireland's Minister for Arts, Sport & Tourism, John O'Donohue TD.
 
Hurley is represented in many public. corporate and private collections in Ireland and overseas, notably in the collections of AIB Group, Citibank, IFX Power, Noelle Campbell Sharp, Norma Smurfitt, Xaviour McAulliffe, Legal Aid Board, Brandon Hotel, Tralee, Brehan Hotel, Killarney and John O'Donohue TD among others.