 |
|---|
Julienne Johnson
julienneart@me.com
www.juliennejohnson.com
ARTIST STATEMENT
“I make art to communicate what I cannot communicate with words: what I need to say about it all; what's going on in the world around us, what I cannot fix, what I wish I could make different with my paint or clay, metal or the sledge hammer my husband gave me. I work desperately hard at it all -hands first: putting on - taking off, scraping, sanding, sawing, soldering, pounding. It takes a whole lot of passion and persistence when you are trying so desperately to trade ashes for beauty.”
_______________________________________________________
JAMES BAE ESSAY on JOHNSON
There is a sense of an inward dialogue, however tacitly embedded, underneath the abstract gestures in the paintings of Julienne Johnson.
In her series, Ashes for Beauty, we see these paintings as an ongoing variation of a familiar theme; a conversation taking place between the curves and flow of each other’s surfaces, mediated by bands and pockets of color – often lithe, sometimes strident – in semaphore.
The title of the series is a clue to what may have driven Johnson to produce these works. “To give unto them beauty for ashes,” Isaiah 61:3 imparts: “the oil of joy for mourning.” These are, then, paintings of the most personal of sort of love and loss, and the ardor of memory. They are visual reminders of the processes one is engaged in, by our being here left to remember, in finding reasons to move on.
What gives these works their poetic and numerous qualities is the abstraction of their appearance, wedded and arising from a uniquely humanistic concern. The passages of colors infer moods: bursts of colors hover over a ground of melancholic grays; a fog of violets pool upon a base of light blues; the radiance of yellow floods a canvas like a rush of morning sun. In other works, a figment of a letter is an intimate address to an impenetrable past.
Looking at her work is appreciating the type of work that understands that less can be more. Perhaps the hardest thing to do in art is to make an abstract work mean something, and not render it simply an exercise in cleverness, arranging shapes and colors into a perfunctory, graphic order. Johnson’s work, in its dedication to find a unified form of the senses, speaks of a further, more meaningful conversation that is taking place.
JAMES BAE, a Contributing Editor for Paper Monument magazine – A Journal of Contemporary Art, and independent curator and past interim curator at the Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, California.
_____________________________________________________
ARTSPEAK
“Mixing media has always come naturally to me. I love the texture of paint, the pliability of clay and the strength of metal. I create in a physical way, working hands on – applying, removing, scraping, sanding, sawing, soldering, pounding - I’m all over it; shape to shape and color to color until I’m satisfied with the whole. During the in-between, creation takes place simultaneously. It has been said that I paint as a sculptor, and that may be true...
The art comes from a place deeper than reason; traveling a path where words hide. I feel led from one shape to another as a poem travels from one word to another. Color is a given – without thought. The core of each piece is not seen. Its essence, like life, is beneath the surface under the layers. It usually begins with a shape although that doesn’t necessarily mean paint. Color is a reflection of mood or emotional undertone – rather than choice. Each color thereafter is a response to the last.
Letters play a significant role. Occasionally words matter as well. The shape of individual letters or group of letters is what intrigues me. While working, I rarely notice what the letter combinations spell. I get lost in the beauty of the various shapes without reading words.
Currently, Non-objective art captivates me. I am seduced by the space of it. As a musical composition on its way to becoming a song must leave space for a lyric or the story line, I want my art to do the same; to leave space for you to imagine, to wonder and fill with your own story. Conversely, if I paint an object orientated work, the space has already been filled – by me. It is final! All the questions are answered and the storyline has been written. My way of reaching out to you is to leave some space in my room for you to fill, as you wish. I trust you to do that. And it is my deepest hope that you will take pleasure there, and stay with me…..at least for a little while.”
SELECTED PERMANENT COLLECTIONS & EXHIBITIONS
2011 “Au Sable” accepted into the permanent collection of the Arab American National Museum
(an affiliate of the Smithsonian Museum, Washington, DC)
2009 Pacific Asian Museum, Contemporary Gallery, CA (Curator –Guangi Li Chang)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2011 (Nov) Portraits of the Fallen: A Memorial to Honor Our Nations Heroes, Terrell Moore Gallery,
Los Angeles, CA - (Curator- Sherry Moore)
2011 (Nov) NOHO Arts Festival, NoHo Arts District, North Hollywood, CA - (Rico Adair & CELLA Galleries)
2011 (Sept) FLAGSTOP 2011, South Bay Lexus, Torrence, CA
2011 (Aug) Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA
2011 (July) TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA
2011 (June) TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA (solo)
2011 GEM Show Galley 825, La Cienega Blvd, L.A. CA 90036
2011 (Mars) TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA
2011 (Jan) TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA
2010 (Sept) TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA (solo)
2010 (Aug) & (Jan) TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA
2009 Art Center College of Art and Design –Painting - (Curator- Anne Saitzyk)
2009 Art Center College of Art and Design/ Sculpture Photo – Catalog Cover
2008 Art Center College of Art and Design, CA/ Sculpture/Curator –Chris Statoff
1978 Ann Arbor Street fair, MI/ Juried – U of M
1978 Downriver Artists Association, MI/ Juried / People’s Choice Award
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDUCATION
2012 Catherine Chang Liu / Workshop **** 2011 Catherine Chang Liu / Workshop
2009 - 2005 Art Center College of Art and Design, CA **** 2008 - 2006 Otis College of Art and Design, CA
2008 Chinese Brush Painting / Calligraphy – Ongoing **** 2009 LAAFA / Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art
2009 Instituto San Miguel de Allende, Mexico **** 2009 Catherine Chang Liu / Workshop
Oakland University - MI / Fine Art **** Wayne State University - MI / Fine Art **** Taylor University - IN / Fine Art
Dick Grove School of Music - CA / Songwriting – Composing
* None of the artworks may be copied or reproduced without the written permission of the Artist