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Mitchell Johnson: Nothing and Change: Selected Paintings 1990-2022
This 80 page, limited edition, paperback book (published August 10, 2022) accompanies the exhibit Mitchell Johnson Nothing and Change at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill September 7-18, 2022. It includes 60 color reproductions and an essay by the poet, Jesse Nathan. The book also includes an essay by Mitchell Johnson, How We See Versus How Things Look. Paintings featured are from New England, Newfoundland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, California, New York and France.
80 pages, Paperback
Published August 10, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 31, 2022
‘Drawing and painting expanded time for me’ – the special spectrum of Mitchell Johnson
Mitchell Johnson is a San Francisco Bay Area artist who divides his time between his Redwood City studio and memorable locales around the globe. His paintings are in significant collections across the United States and in Europe, as this extraordinary survey attests: paintings included emerge from New England, California, New York, Sweden, Italy, Newfoundland, Denmark and France – direct observations by an artist who celebrates color and form translated into abstraction and representation.
NOTHING AND CHANGE celebrates an exhibition at the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill from September 7 – 18, 2022. Mitchell Johnson is an important artist and visual voice in the ongoing discussion of representation versus abstraction: he simply paints in both manners, feeling strongly that the elements of making a painting lie less in the recreation of an observed object than in those building blocks common to both realism and abstraction. Color is the creative driving force that results in the incredible spectrum of work that represents not only his past but also his current output.
This selection of Mitchell’s oeuvre samples nearly all aspects of his career. For those who follow his career out of love for the simple blocks of color that initiated his fame, paintings in that vein are here. But the joy of reading this catalogue is the introduction (to some) of his figurative work – quietly replacing exact detail with impressions. The constant connection with dazzling color and obsession with shapes continues to produce some of the most pure art works before the public today. Light, color, and responses to visual find the bridge between representation and abstraction. The catalogue essay by Jesse Nathan and the artist’s own words at book’s end underscore the impact of this superb exhibition.
Mitchell Johnson is a San Francisco Bay Area artist who divides his time between his Redwood City studio and memorable locales around the globe. His paintings are in significant collections across the United States and in Europe, as this extraordinary survey attests: paintings included emerge from New England, California, New York, Sweden, Italy, Newfoundland, Denmark and France – direct observations by an artist who celebrates color and form translated into abstraction and representation.
NOTHING AND CHANGE celebrates an exhibition at the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill from September 7 – 18, 2022. Mitchell Johnson is an important artist and visual voice in the ongoing discussion of representation versus abstraction: he simply paints in both manners, feeling strongly that the elements of making a painting lie less in the recreation of an observed object than in those building blocks common to both realism and abstraction. Color is the creative driving force that results in the incredible spectrum of work that represents not only his past but also his current output.
This selection of Mitchell’s oeuvre samples nearly all aspects of his career. For those who follow his career out of love for the simple blocks of color that initiated his fame, paintings in that vein are here. But the joy of reading this catalogue is the introduction (to some) of his figurative work – quietly replacing exact detail with impressions. The constant connection with dazzling color and obsession with shapes continues to produce some of the most pure art works before the public today. Light, color, and responses to visual find the bridge between representation and abstraction. The catalogue essay by Jesse Nathan and the artist’s own words at book’s end underscore the impact of this superb exhibition.
February 2, 2023
Nothing and Change is a beautiful retrospective of Mitchell Johnson’s work. Having known him for thirty years, I am fortunate to have seen his evolution as an artist. His dedication to pursuing color and shape in the context of land and cityscapes is only matched by his incredible instinct for putting the paint right where it needs to be. His paintings are full of action and resolve without the need for refinement. That said, the paintings’ overall effect is more than refined and elegant, painterly and composed. Each painting startles, then delights me with the juxtaposition of colors playing off each other. . . and the scale of each piece, not obvious in the book, is important to visualize. Once he told me that putting paint on a canvas was like adding musical notes to a complex symphony. Absolutely, I see and hear that in the work, both. I look forward to collecting more of his work and books in the future.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews