Neil Johnston
Wandering
In his new works, Johnston explores the surface quality of painting and its relationship to image as a metaphor for memory. The transformation of event to memory is like the translation of image into texture. Image alone is illusion; substance and texture dispel illusion and makes substantial something that which is ethereal.
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Neil Johnston's latest paintings resemble maps but they are in fact formations of leaves growing from trees. "At first glance," says Johnston, "standing under a tree and looking up at the leaf patterns they seem random or crazy. But on closer inspection they are specific place-markers under that particular tree at that moment which allows for a unique configuration to occur. It is dualistic in nature: simultaneously chaotic and specific."There is an interesting and fundamental question painting seeks to answer. How does the materialism of paint express or influence image? These paintings use translation of image through substance as a metaphor for the mysterious transformation of an idea or memory into physicality or substance. They are a physical external expression of an internal synaptic process. Our minds control our bodies; the image is controlling the substance or surface.
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Johnston is currently collaborating with composer Jeremy Wagner
in an effort to combine music and painting.
Click here for more information.
The exhibitions will culminate in a closing reception on Thursday, October11,
from 5:00-8:00 p.m. The resulting suite of paintings will be displayed
and the artists will be present to discuss the collaboration at that time. |
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