“That’s All, Folks!”, paintings by Harris Johnson, opens on November 11th at 6pm in the Gallery at Arts Collinwood. The show runs through December 3rd. The image above is entitled, “In the Gallery”, acrylic on canvas, 70″ x 81″, 2011.
Harris Johnson was born in Columbus,Ohio in 1986. He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a BFA in Painting in 2009 and Certificate from The Burren College in Ballyvaughan, Ireland. His work has been displayed in local and overseas exhibitions, featured in online publications and held in numerous private collections. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
Artist Statement: For the past year, I’ve been working on a group of paintings that explores and satirizes the notion of the artist in the studio My recent paintings come from a tradition of still life painting, portraiture and caricature, yet have no real objects or people present during their making. Every painting is conceived and resolved on the canvas. I begin with a kind of absent-minded doodling that becomes something as the work physically evolves through the process of painting. I draw from specific genres of art (Caricature, Portraiture, Still-life) and take an idiosyncratic or comical approach to my subject matter.
It is my belief that being an artist is a self- referential and self- critical process, rife with absurdity, humor, tragedy, and paradox. When I abandoned the idea of seriousness and gravity, this in turn, allowed me to make this series of paintings. I have always battled with artistic tradition and notions of creative progress, and I use my painting practice to investigate and satirize the world of the artist. Yet, at their foundation, these paintings are sincere, autobiographical ‘tools’ that allow me to remain actively engaged in a dialogue with the world of art.
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