KELLEY JOHNSON: New Paintings

KELLEY JOHNSON NEW PAINTINGS

bruno david gallery

KELLEY JOHNSON NEW PAINTINGS

February 1 - 23, 2013 Bruno David Gallery 3721 Washington Boulevard Saint Louis, 63108 Missouri, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition Kelley Johnson: New Paintings Editor: Bruno L. David Catalogue Designer: Yoko Kiyoi and Christy Kirk Designer Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and Kelley Johnson Photographs by Bruno David Gallery Cover image: KELLEY JOHNSON. Untitled 8, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 91-1/2 x 73-1/2 x 2-1/2 inches (232.4 x 186.7 x 6.4 cm)

First Edition Copyright Š 2013 Bruno David Gallery, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery, Inc.

CONTENTS

On Kelley Johnson

BY NICOLE YEN Paintings by Kelley Johnson

BY DAMON FREED Kelley Johnson

BY NICOLE FRY Afterword

BY BRUNO L. DAVID CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION BIOGRAPHY

On Kelley Johnson

BY NICOLE YEN

Electronically generated light is becoming the standard form in which we share images. The latest generation is buried by an onslaught of social media, bombarded by marketing campaigns, and inundated by trends; people are becoming accustomed to seeing the world through phones, computers, and tablets. Kelley Johnson’s paintings provide a much-needed escape from the increasingly fast paced environment that surrounds us. Johnson values the final object, the painting itself, as much as its ability to reveal aspects of the painting process. Instead of using light as a medium to create flat rectangular images, Johnson’s canvases become tantalizing sensations of light, movement, forms, and space—doorways into worlds we can experience.

While some of Johnson’s paintings are powerful vortexes of neon colors, other paintings are muted, allowing the viewer to float at their leisure. Despite differences in visual volume, Johnson’s paintings all share a confusion of space, inviting exploration.

Shutter is composed of shouting colors and harsh angles, causing the sensation of vertigo. Johnson employs brightly colored rectangles with slightly skewed angles, making them appear to shrink and grow. The consistent line thickness both defines and groups the rectangles together, suggesting that they live in the same plane. The high color contrast focuses the viewer’s attention on the inward/outward vibrations. Johnson then uses spindly white lines resembling geometric spider webs to weave through the rectangles, confusing spatial orientation and complicating initial impressions. On a tertiary level exists a blurred black-spotted pink background. The flatness causes the first two levels to pull away entirely, leaving the viewer mulling over the depth created.

Untitled 14, the smallest of Kelley’s paintings in the current show, consists of a completely different color scheme and style of mark making. The gestures used are much looser than the lines in Shutter—small irregular daubs of colored paint combined with thin, trembling black dashes. When solely focused on the dashes, the perspective seems easy to distinguish. However, Johnson blankets portions of the canvas with a muddy, desaturated haze, disrupting the otherwise easy atmosphere.

Johnson’s style, while not representational, succeeds in evoking aspects of location. In a world where light provides escape, his paintings become escapes that question our understanding of light and space.

Paintings by Kelley Johnson

BY DAMON FREED

Few artists in history have used the airbrush or rattle can technique, dominant in the new paintings of Kelley Johnson, to such great effect. Rebecca Morris and Keltie Ferris come to mind in recent years, but their application with a spray can is looser and less controlled.

A lesser-known abstractionist from the 1960s, named Dan Christensen, used the airbrush in a similar controlled manner. However, Johnson has more tools on display, giving the effect of spatial dynamism when paired with hard-edged lines and shapes.

Johnson’s new work, when compared to his own 2010 show at the Bruno David Gallery, is flatter and more optically oriented, with emphasis aimed internally. The floating abysses of layered shapes that once made us believe in a world beyond the painting’s edge have been substituted by rectilinear line work and framing devices. The play is centered, supporting the painting’s nature as complete object. Yet, unlike the mandala and its strict symmetry, the works are skewed, causing your head to tilt at times for deeper investigation. The paintings are structurally calmer than in years past, and the color use is more direct, decisive even.

What I like most about Johnson’s new paintings is that he is less interested now in the real world of perspective lines and shapes and more interested in painting’s own capacity for spatial invention and metaphysics. When making a jump such as this, not all land on their feet as well as Johnson does. The paintings are buzzing with illusions fit for the very best of non-objective painters and optical magicians of today. If knowledge has anything to do with the making of a good painting, then Kelley Johnson is wise indeed.

Kelley Johnson

BY NICOLE FRY 10

Kelley Johnson’s new series of work at Bruno David Gallery, titled “New Paintings,” is an interesting exercise in dualities. Johnson plays optical games with acrylic paints, juxtaposing colors and techniques for pleasing results. The paintings serve not only as illusions of fantastical atmospheres, but also as complete objects in themselves. The majority of the paintings are just over five feet in each direction, a comfortable size for visually enveloping the viewer without being too overwhelming. Johnson’s paintings often have a strong central focal point, yet remain visually dynamic. Delicate brushstrokes live alongside bold marks, adding rhythm and variety to the work. Johnson continues many of his line motifs onto the canvases’ sides, acknowledging the paintings’ nature as an object, as well as providing a rare treat for those viewing the paintings in person.

Momentum and stability have an interesting relationship in Johnson’s work. In Shutter, for example, the two design principles play off one another for vivid results. Bold lines of flat color crisscross the pink canvas, forming interlocking square and triangle forms. The bold square forms nest within one another, as if mimicking the telescoping effect of a camera’s zoom lens. The delicate triangles’ corners also converge on this center point. Normally such a composition would feel static, yet Johnson skews the shapes just enough to create a hypnotic momentum. The lively forms seem as if they are simultaneously whirling in and out of a vortex, a mesmerizing feat.

Johnson’s fluency in visual language is not limited to just crisp line work. Organic gestural lines come just as naturally. In Bound, black, white and blue lines hover at the painting’s surface, meeting at angles reminiscent of an architectural blueprint. Underneath these lines are gestural brushstrokes, looping and writhing about the picture plane. Flat white pentagonal forms span the left and right sides of the canvas, pinning these undulating lines in. This creates the uncanny illusion of the painting doubling in and collapsing onto its self, denying the true flat nature of the canvas.

The “New Paintings” align well with other contemporary artists, such as Paul Demuro and Dan Christensen. The work also harkens back to Vladimir Tatlin’s graphic design work at the turn of the 20th century. Johnson excels not only at creating fantastically rhythmic spatial relationships on the canvas, but he also has a keen eye for considering the paintings as a complete, self-inclusive objects. This sense of the self-contained contrasts nicely with the deep, vivid illusionistic spaces he creates. It is as if each painting is a Pandora’s box, a shimmering and fantastic world within, waiting to be let loose onto the earth.

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AFTERWORD

BY BRUNO L. DAVID 12

I am pleased to present Kelley Johnson’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. In a career spanning over two decades, Kelley Johnson continues his exploration of large-scale painting.

Johnson’s artwork explores ways in which painting can be constructed, interested in his paintings as objects, and their ability to illustrate atmospheres and sensations. Found within Johnson’s works are juxtapositions of geometric lines and spontaneously blurred arcs, that evoke feelings of depth and vibration. The repetition of similar shapes creates a melodious rhythm within his pieces, and Johnson’s color choices amplify or mute the patterns made—swathes of emerald green interrupt muddy grays, dashes of hot pink race against black. Some moments within the artwork willfully declare their presence. Other moments whisper and glide by. Johnson carefully chooses these attributes to show how his paintings operate as components of a language, rather than remain static canvases upon a wall.

Johnson’s current exhibition, born in part from his Works on Paper Series in 2011, has the viewer weaving out of the canvases and into the environment. In some pieces, Johnson allows a few simple lines to extend off the edge; in others, he will paint the full surface. These choices emphasize the dialog between depiction and object—the brushstrokes pull the viewer out of the object, yet the depth of the painting reminds the viewer of the object itself.

Johnson received his B.F.A. from Parsons School of Design, New York and his M.F.A. from the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana University. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. He currently divides his time between St. Louis and Miami.

Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Damon Freed, Nicole Yen and Nicole Fry for their thoughtful essays. I am deeply grateful to Yoko Kiyoi and Christy Kirk, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Martin Lang, Christy Kirk, Sophie Lipman, Yoko Kiyoi, Ashley Milow, and Nicole Fry.

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CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

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Untitled 8, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 91-1/2 x 73-1/2 x 2-1/2 inches (232.4 x 186.7 x 6.4 cm)

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Push, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 74 x 60 x 2-1/2 inches (188 x 152.4 x 6.4 cm)

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Untitled 7, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 74 x 60 x 2-1/2 inches (188 x 152.4 x 6.4 cm)

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Shutter, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 74 x 74 x 2-1/2 inches (188 x 188 x 6.4 cm)

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Untitled 5, 2012 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 74 x 74 x 2-1/2 inches (188 x 188 x 6.4 cm)

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Untitled 4, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 74 x 74 x 2-1/2 inches (188 x 188 x 6.4 cm)

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Untitled 14, 2012 Acrylic and mixed media on wood 20 x 20 x 1-1/2 inches (50.8 x 50.8 x 3.8 cm)

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Memory of Hair Metal, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 47-1/2 x 36-1/2 x 2-1/2 inches (120.7 x 92.7 x 6.4 cm)

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Bound, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 74 x 60 x 2-1/2 inches (188 x 152.4 x 6.4 cm)

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Untitled 12, 2012 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 47-1/2 x 36-1/2 x 2-1/2 inches (120.7 x 92.7 x 6.4 cm)

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Untitled 13, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 47-1/2 x 36-1/2 x 2-1/2 inches (120.7 x 92.7 x 6.4 cm)

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Kelley Johnson: New Paintings at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (Installation View) 38

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Kelley Johnson: New Paintings at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (Installation View) 40

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Kelley Johnson: New Paintings at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (Installation View) 42

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Kelley Johnson: New Paintings at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (Installation View) 44

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Kelley Johnson: New Paintings at Bruno David Gallery, 2013 (Installation View) 46

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KELLEY JOHNSON Born: 1973, Houston, Texas Lives and works in Miami, Florida EDUCATION 2001 1999 1998

Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. M.F.A. Parsons School of Design, New York, New York. B.F.A. Yale Summer School of Art, Painting Fellow, Norfolk, Connecticut

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2013 2012 2011 2010 2007

Bruno David Gallery, Kelley Johnson: New Paintings, Saint Louis, Missouri Twin Kittens Gallery, Kelley Johnson: Recent Paintings, Atlanta, Georgia Bruno David Gallery, Kelley Johnson: Works on Paper Series, Saint Louis, Missouri Bruno David Gallery, Kelley Johnson: Recent Paintings, Saint Louis, Missouri Bruno David Gallery, Kelley Johnson: Dreaming, Saint Louis, Missouri

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2013 2012 2010

2009

2008

Blue-White-Red, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Live/Work, Twin Kittens Gallery, Atlanta, GA Overpaper, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Recession Rejuvenations, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Overview_09, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, MO NEXT, Art Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, (Bruno David Gallery) Controlled Chaos, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO

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2008 2007

2006 2005

2003 2002

2001 2000 1999

1998

OVER_VIEW 08, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Painters from Saint Louis, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO On Paper, Bruno David gallery, St. Louis, MO Overview, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, Missouri Inaugural Exhibition, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Once Upon A Time, Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst University, Kansas City, MO Group Show, Webster University, St. Louis, MO Group Exhibition, Ohr O’Keefe Museum of Art, Biloxi, MS Group Exhibition, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL Thesis Show, Indiana University Museum, Bloomington, IN Group Show, S.O.F.A. Gallery, Bloomington, IN Group Show, Parsons School of Design in Paris, Paris, France Group Show, S.O.F.A. Gallery, Bloomington, IN Summer Show, Yale at Norfolk, Norfolk, CT

BIBLIOGRAPHY Zevitas, Steven Freed, Damon Griesbach, Sarah H. Fry, Nicole Yen, Nicole Reese, Rachel Ramsey, Meagan A. Yood, James.

Lyons, Vara Cooper, Ivy Baran, Jessica Weant, Nancy K.

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“Must see Painting shows: February 2013 (Kelley Johnson),” The Huffington Post, 2013 “Paintings by Kelley Johnson,” Bruno David Gallery Publications, Catalogue, Essay, 2013 “Visual Effects at Bruno David - delight for my eyes and mind,” STL Beacon, 2013 “On Kelley Johnson,” Bruno David Gallery Publications, Catalogue, Essay, 2013 “Kelley Johnson,” Bruno David Gallery Publications, Catalogue, Essay, 2013 “Twin Kittens and Kelley Johnson Prove solid in Gallery’s new location,” Burnaway Magazine, 2012 “Kelley Johnson: Works on Paper”, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Catalogue, Essay, 2011 “Kelley Johnson”, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Catalogue, Essay, 2010 “Kelley Johnson: Recent Paintings”, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Catalogue, Essay, 2010 “Johnson’s work demands attention”, St. Louis Beacon, September 13, 2010 “Recession Rejuvenations”, Riverfront Times, St. Louis, MO, August 25, 2010 “2007 St. Louis Painters”, Review Magazine, Kansas City, 2007

Stouffer, Lindsey.

Miller, Rob. Cooper, Ivy. Bonetti, David.

Crone, Tomas.

Beall, Hugh.

Miller, Rob. Beall, Hugh.

Griffin, Bill.

Bonetti, David.

Sieloff, Alison.

Bonetti, David.

Murphy, Anne.

“Kelley Johnson: Dreaming”, Bruno David Gallery Publications, Catalogue, Essay, 2007 “’Over hung’ show or ‘Hung over’ critic?” Saintlouisart, November 17, 2005.

“Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Riverfront Times, November 9, 2005.

“Bruno David Gallery”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 9, 2005 “Bruno David to Open on Friday”, 52nd City, October 2005 “The Bruno buzz”, West End Word, October 26, 2005 “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Saintlouisart, October 25, 2005 “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Illusion Junkie, October 25, 2005. Web “Kelley Johnson” Video Interview. http://illusionjunkie.blogspot.com. October 2005 “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 20, 2005 “Grand Grand Center”, Riverfront Times, October 19, 2005 “Gallery musical chairs”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 1, 2005 “Art News”, The Healthy Planet, September 2005

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ARTISTS Laura Beard Martin Brief Lisa K. Blatt Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Beverly Fishman Damon Freed

Joan Hall Ann Hamilton Kim Humphries Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Peter Marcus Patricia Olynyk

Robert Pettus Gary Passanise Judy Pfaff Daniel Raedeke Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Buzz Spector Cindy Tower Mario Trejo Ken Worley

brunodavidgallery.com

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