Peter Surace Founder & President of RARE Gallery, New York A mutual friend introduced me to Johnston Foster over a decade ago while he was completing his MFA at Hunter College. He showed me a small group of partially and fully finished sculptures that I initially thought were items of debris he was moving around and out of the way so he could show me his work. I finally realized that these pieces were his work, made out of what he liked to term “what has been smashed” – the trash of others, rejected, tossed aside, thrown out. I was blown away – no artist I ever met had made such evocative and honest objects, out of junk no less. At the time I did not fully comprehend how brilliantly Johnston crafted his work and how cunningly he imbued it with subtle, yet slashing commentary on human behavior, but I was mesmerized nevertheless. I had come upon something new and meaningful, and I knew that in time I would come to a better understanding of what this mild-mannered, soft-spoken artist from Williamsburg, Virginia, was getting at. What sealed the deal for me was a video that Johnston did not even consider part of his oeuvre – a short piece a friend had shot of him skateboarding. Toward the end of the video, Johnston falls off the skateboard, twisting his ankle and grabbing it in great pain while his friend continues filming for a good 20 seconds. Johnston finally turns to the camera and shouts to his friend, “Turn off that #$*&!% camera and help me!” Interesting I thought – the guy has guts, and as I soon came to realize so does his work, in spades. I offered him a show on the spot. I have known Dionisios Fragias almost as long, but the beginning of our working relationship occurred almost by happenstance. When RARE was located in the meatpacking district of Manhattan from 1998-2003, Dionisios was employed by a well-known artist in a space next door to our gallery. I would see him on occasion, taking a break with some of his colleagues on the sidewalk just outside of our door. He would occasionally stop by to say hello or check out one of our shows. It was months before Dionisios even mentioned he was an artist, and even more months passed before he invited me to check out his work. A more self-effacing person I had never met. So, when I saw his work for the first time the experience was a bit of a shock. There was nothing mellow about it, and I certainly was not prepared for paintings that appeared to be breaking through walls and multi-hued sculptures that looked like meteorites surrounded by the rings of Saturn. Dionisios’ work seemed to point the way to the future, even though its commentary is focused on the current state of human affairs – and I think that has always been the point. He is warning us to get our act together now in terms of how nations and people relate to each other so that we do not have to suffer dire consequences later on. This in fact is the message of both Johnston and Dionisios – the same message, but approached through their distinct and distinctive styles, neither resembling the other. One artist using trash and a rough-hewn craft, the other utilizing the finest of materials and means. Two artists offering us guidance via vastly different practices and methods, but both arriving at the same endpoint.
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