Untitled V, Pastel on paper, 46 x 67 cm
SOLD
‘My work is spontaneous; there are no room for lies’
Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson grew up surrounded by art; both his parents were painters and there were framed prints of Vermeer and Albert Pinkham Ryder hanging on the walls of his childhood home in Mosman. Leaving school at fourteen he worked at the Lintas agency, rambled around rural NSW on painting trips with close friend Brett Whiteley and studied at the Julian Ashton Art School and the National Art School in Sydney. In 1960, he decided to travel and departed by ship passing through Egypt, Greece and Italy on route to London. He met Whiteley in Florence and together they decided to travel to Bologna to visit the studio the Italian still life painter Giorgio Morandi. When he eventually arrived in London he spent the next seven years painting full time while also working as a studio assistant to the British sculptors Brian Wall and Anthony Caro. While living in London he immersed himself in the art world and was introduced to Francis Bacon, David Hockney and Oskar Kokoschka. Unlike other Australian artists who found international success through figurative and semi abstracted landscape (notably Sidney Nolan and John Olsen) Johnson’s European experience distilled his love of colour, space and form into highly distilled abstract works. His return to Sydney in 1967 contributed to a generational shift towards minimal geometric abstraction that was reflected in his first solo show at Gallery A and the ground breaking exhibition ‘The Field’ in 1968.
Mixing his own pigments and stretching his own frames to generate unique shaped canvases, these minimal works were characterized by large areas of flat, solid colour creating unbroken surfaces with no emphasis on gesture or brushstroke. His purpose was to eliminate recognizable imagery in favor of abstraction and to build a unique fusion between architectonics, sculpture and painting. Inspired by the work of Quattrocento Italian painters, the organic forms of Constantin Brancusi, the frontal drama of Albert Albers and the colour and scale of Henri Matisse, his work in the late 60s was a uniquely Australian interpretation of a major global shift away from representation. Moving to New York in 1970, the work of the next decade gradually came to embrace more surface texture and a palette that became more and more identifiable with a ‘bush spectrum’. By the time he reached North Queensland in 1979 he became interested in the diversity and ecology of the environment, looking at the intense and complex relationships within nature. Many things triggered his inspiration: his appreciation of form, the colours on bird feathers, and the reflecting metallic hot-rod colours on beetle wing covers. The symmetrical patterns on butterfly wings, leaves, mammals, reptiles, fish bones and birds eggs, everything was absorbed, remembered and used in his art. Colour and light have remained a lifelong preoccupation and Johnson links every major shift and phase of his work to natural influences: fallen branches on a bush floor, floating leaves on a moving river, and how light from the sun reflected on different water surfaces, especially in the ocean. Many of Johnson’s large nocturnal and oceanic blue works evoke a personal memory of staring through the sea water on a dark night and marveling at the phosphorescence and the bioluminescence of the organisms swimming in the sea:
‘Probably the strongest influence that brought about the metaphor of water, darkness and skies was the mystery of fishing at Lobster Beach at Broken Bay’
Other shapes created by nature continue to interest him, like the empty seashells washed up by the tide and scattered on the beach, the natural debris deposited along strandlines by the waves and the tide as the water recedes back into the ocean. As his paintings became more painterly he also began to analyze the environment identifying the elements that contribute significantly to each other.
The style which he has become most recognized for is distinguished by ultra-thick impasto multi layered paintwork and rich complex use of colour. These textural paintings full of controlled energy are constructed with heavily imposed layers of colours that he describes as ‘zones’.
The horizontal zones of colour which divide his paintings evoke the layers of recycled life, cycles of light throughout the passage of a single day and contrasting elements such as fire and water, earth and air. The impulses come from landscape but they are not landscapes in the literal sense. As he has said, ‘these are paintings are not to be viewed and considered in the interpretative way, they must be explored as a visual experience’
When interviewed after winning the prestigious 2014 Wynne Prize for his painting Oceania high low he said ‘the work pays homage to the origin myths of Oceania, particularly the Maori legend of the sky and earth being separated to admit the light of day. Landscape is so often signaled by the division of sea and sky but this work deals with convex space rather than a conventional horizontal perspective. With a wider scale and a paler palette, I explore the inverted geology under the sea or the unmapped strata of clouds’.
Oceania high low was an epic mural scaled painting that signaled yet another shift in Johnson’s work away from gestural paintwork and towards a flatter surface and brighter key or palette. Over the span of fifty years of painting, some might observe that his work has come full circle and is now currently exploring the sculptural properties of colour and the symbolic power of forms. Linking every phase and making sense of the contrasts, is a deep ongoing conversation with colour. Michael Johnson is a colorist who never tires of the “energy and crackle” of the spectrum. Whether working on a small rice paper drawing, slicing into a collage of calligraphy, sketching in pastel or drawing up a vast mural with faint charcoal lines on raw canvas, every work has a definite underpinning based on his own highly evolved ideas about geometry. The spontaneity of every line pivots on a structure. And while many look to Johnson to find a link to the landscape he stresses that his work is primarily abstract: ‘The experience of the painting’ he argues, is the painting. I want the impact to engage the senses, play with time and spacial awareness. My painting is not an object capturing scenery; it is a sensory experience in its own terms’.
1938
Born Sydney, Australia, currently lives and works in Sydney.
1953-59
Studied at Julian Art School, Sydney. Diploma of Art, National Art School Sydney.
1960-67
Lived in London.
1962-63
Brian Wall (Steel Sculpture, Studio Assistant.
1963-64
Michael Kidner (built and constructed three-dimensional painting) Studio Assistant.
1964-65
Anthony Coro (rebuilt and painted ‘Madam Pompodour’ aluminum), worked with Ron Robertson Swann and repainted all steel works of Coro. (1960-65) Studio Assistant.
1969-75
Lived and Worked in the United States.
1963-85
Lecturer: St Martins School of Art, London; Croyden School of Art, London; Birmingham School of Art, United Kingdon; East Sydney Technical College, Sydney, Alexander Mackie College, Sydney; Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney’ James Cook University, Townsville; Newcastle College of Advanced Education, NSW; Goulburn College of advanced Education, NSW; Brisbane Arts Council, QLD; University of New South Wales, Sydney; City Art institute, Sydney; Crown Lane School of Art, Sydney; Silpokon University Malchon, Thailand.
1980-81
Collaborated with Robert Klippel (convexed/concaved colour on constructivist steel-type sculpture spray painted).
Selected Solo Exhibition
2015 Metro Gallery, Melbourne.
Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne. Annette Larkin Fine Art, Sydney.
2014 Metro Gallery, Melbourne.
Annette Larkin Fine Art, Sydney.
2013 Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney.
2011 Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney.
2010 Metro Gallery, Melbourne.
Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne.
2009 Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney, 2009 Hong Kong international Art Fair, Stand Ko4.
2007 Sherman Galleries, Sydney.
2003 Shermon Galleries, Sydney, Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane.
2002 Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne.
2001 Sherman Galleries Goodhope, Sydney.
1999 Sherman Galleries Goodhope, Sydney.
1998 Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne.
1997 Sherman Galleries Goodhope, Sydney.
1996 Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne.
1995 Sherman Galleries Goodhope, Sydney.
1994 Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne.
1993 Sherman Galleries Goodhope, Sydney.
1992 Studio Exhibition, Jorocin Ave, Forest Lodge, NSW.
1991 Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne.
1990 Macquarie Galleries, Sydney.
1989 Michael Johnson, Survey 1968-1988, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Forum, Invitational Art Fair, Hamburg, West Germany.
1988 Macquarie Galleries, Sydney. Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne.
1986 Macquarie Galleries, Sydney. University Gallery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne. Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne.
1985 Studio Exhibition, Pitt St, Haymarket, Sydney. Gallery 52, Perth.
1983-84 Studio Exhibition, Oxford St, Darlinghurst, Sydney.
1982 Studio Exhibition, Greene St New York. 237 Lafayette, New York. Pinocotheca Gallery, Melbourne.
1981 Gallery A, Sydney.
1980 Gallery A, Sydney.
1979 Gallery A, Sydney.
1977 Gallery A, Sydney. Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York.
1976 Gallery A, Sydney. Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.
1975 Studio Exhibition, James Cooke University, QLD.
1974 Gallery A, Sydney. Studio Exhition, Bpwery, New York.
1973 Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York.
1972 Gallery A, Sydney.
1970 Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York.
Awards and Commisions
1989 Syndey Conference Centre, NSW.
1986 Visual Arts Board (Artist-in-residence,) The University of Melbourne.
1984 Mural, State Bank of New South Wales, NSW.
1983 Tapestry, Waverly Council Centre, Victoria.
1981 Visual Arts Board (New York Studio), New York.
1980 Camden Art Society (Works on Paper), NSW.
1976 Gold Coast Art Prize (Painting), QLD.
1975 Visual Arts Board (Artist-in-residence grant), Sydney.
1975 James Cook University, Townsville, QLD.
1974 Visual Arts Board (Grant), Sydney.
1967 R. H Taft’s Prize, Contemporary Art Society Annual Exhibition, Sydney.
Collections
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Art Gallery of New South Wale, Sydney
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Parliament House, Canberra
Ballarat Art Gallery, VIC
Burnie Art Gallery, TAS
Gold Coast City Art Gallery Collection, QLD
Newcastle Region Art Gallery, NSW
New England Regional Art Museum, NSW
Wollongong Art Gallery, NSW
Australian National University, Canberra
James Cook University, Townsville, QLD
Monash University, Clayton, VIC
The university of Melbourne Art Collection, Melbourne
State Library of Western Australia, WA
Camde3n Council Art Collection, NSW
Townsville Council Art collection, QLD
Waverly Council Art Collection, VIC
Artbank, Joye Foundation, NSW
Commonwealth Bank of Australia, NSW
Commercial Union Insurance, VIC
Daryl Jackson, VIC
Holmes a Court Collection, Perth.
Hyatt Adelaide, SA, Hyatt on Collins, VIC
Medibank, Sydney
National Bank of Australasia, Melbourne
Park Grand Hotel, NSW
Philip Cox and Partners, NSW
Sly and Weigall, NSW
State Bank of Australia, Telstra, Sydney
Westfeild NSW, Westpac, NSW
Westpac Collections, Sydney
Yulara Tourist Resort, Northern Territory
Chortwell Collections, Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton, NZ
Chase Manhattan, New York
Croydon Education Committee, London.
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