Staff file photo John Mellencamp, right, shown here during a 2018 appearance at the Butler Institute of American Art with Executive Director Louis A. Zona, will bring his art to Youngstown again for an exhibition with his son, Speck Mellencamp, that opens May 7.

YOUNGSTOWN — Father and son will show their work side by side when “Bloodline: The Art of John Mellencamp & Speck Mellencamp” opens next weekend at the Butler Institute of American Art.

Both also have close ties to the Youngstown museum.

This will be John Mellencamp’s third exhibition in the Mahoning Valley. His first exhibition in 2013 was at the Butler’s former Trumbull branch in Howland, and he returned in 2018 for a show in Youngstown. Both times, Butler Executive Director Louis A. Zona did interviews with the artist and Grammy-winning Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and Zona was asked to write the foreword for the 2022 book “John Mellencamp: American Paintings and Assemblages.”

Mellencamp is on tour (he has shows May 22 and 23 at Pittsburgh’s Benedum Center and May 25 and 26 at Cleveland’s Connor Palace), and neither an opening reception nor a public event is planned during the run of “Bloodline,” which will be on display through July 2.

This will be Speck Mellencamp’s first time showing his work at the Butler, but it’s not the first time his paint has been on its walls. Speck Mellencamp, 28, had an informal internship at the Butler and worked there for several weeks.

“Back then we were trying to find things that would keep him from being bored out of his mind,” Zona said. “We had him paint a whole area of the museum where works were going to be installed. He was very helpful and very attentive. He asked a lot of questions.”

Speck Mellencamp said it was a valuable learning experience.

“What I learned when I was at the Butler was how important the smallest details can be when installing an art show, and that’s something I never thought about,” he said. “I thought about making the art and then once it’s done you just put it on a wall. The attention to detail — there’s all sorts of math for like how high it should be according to what (size) painting — and I was just like, whoa, I didn’t know any of that.”

He also said he had the best chicken sandwich he’d ever had in his life in downtown Youngstown, but he couldn’t remember the name of the place. He does remember being impressed by the Butler’s permanent collection.

“That’s been something I’ve been actually talking about to people and how much of an honor it is to be just in the same room with some of my favorite painters.” he said. “They had Andrew Wyeth up, who I just love. They had a Jack Levine painting up when I was there, and a Winslow Homer painting as well. And John Singer Sargent. Just to be in the same space as those guys who have inspired me, that I love so much and admire so much, is a huge honor.”

Speck Mellencamp grew up watching his father paint as well as his paternal grandmother, Marilyn. All three generations showed their work together in a 2019 show at Southern Indiana Center for the Arts in Seymour, where Speck now serves as executive director.

He particularly loved spraypainting in his dad’s studio. But he never took an art lesson until age 17, and that’s when art became more than a pastime. He ended up studying at Rhode Island School of Design.

“It went from doodling for fun to art school rather quickly, but I’m glad I did it,” Speck Mellencamp said.

He got an art education at home, even if he didn’t realize it at the time.

“It (art) was valued in the house where maybe it isn’t everywhere else,” he said. “We would talk about it. It was encouraged, and it was encouraging to see it as a real thing you can do as a career path. There’s the stereotypical, ‘Oh, my parents didn’t want me to go to art school.’ I didn’t have that experience at all, and it was nice to have the encouragement and support from my family.”

Zona said, “You can certainly see the incredible influence his dad had on his work, more than that great art school he went to. He does a lot of figures emerging from darkness, which is incredibly appealing, at least for me. His canvases are just alive with figurative characters, and there are small, incidental objects in the margins that also remind me of his dad.”

There will be about 20 works combined on display from the two Mellencamps. Both artists selected the work they’re showing independently and then shared the choices with each other.

In his 2018 Q&A with Zona, John Mellencamp said, “I think that art should surprise the artist. If the artist is not surprised, it’s something else. It’s not really true art.”

His son said he wants his work to be accessible to all, even if they don’t have an art background. That’s one of the reasons he’s drawn to the human figure.

“I like to keep my paintings in the realm of reality, but a slightly skewed reality,” Speck Mellencamp said. “I like weird costumes, I like masks, I like to do festival, maybe a memory I have experienced that people can relate to.”

agray@tribtoday.com