JP Art Gallery - New Year Exhibition 2021 Final - Flipbook - Page 112
Artist: Lee Johnson
Lee Johnson lives and works in London and holds his MA Fine Art (Central Saint
Martins School of Art)
Paintings begin with objects or images close to hand, the daily essentials that we
cannot do without. A mug, glass or bottle for example, an image of recent news
events in the newspaper, style images on social media. These images then take on
different forms through the painting process. Scale becomes important, and the
translation from the original object or image slowly frees the painting a little. A
poorly drawn bottle becomes a thin necked vase, negative shapes suggest other
items, and before too long, the painting leaves itself behind and becomes something
else.
But the resulting paintings are not strictly still lives or portraits, as they are composed
in the painting, are drawn through the painting. This is not an exercise in
observational picture making, but a soulful construct of what the object or
environment could be.
The paintings are thick with activity, marking the physical building of the picture, and
paintings are often left a long time before finishing. This way, all original impetus
seems lost, so new drives will take the painting further from the original idea.
