Jackie K. Johnson
Portland artist Jackie K. Johnson paints evocative, totemic forms with vibrant colors and mesmerizing compositions. In this exhibition, shapes and colors unfold and dance across the canvas. Her forms hint of the natural and the manmade: industrial landscapes, smokestacks, fish, waterways, the human form, simplified and transformed. Johnson explains that her paintings often evolve out of her emotional response to events in the world. “This is a process by which I can engage with all things whether comfortable or disturbing, beautiful or ugly…. I am interested in fate versus fortune, the unexpected, transformations and how a small change in orientation can effect a radical change of meaning.” Johnson reveals metaphor throughout her work by reinventing form. Ideas of perception are reconsidered; elements become iconic and primal, as totemic shapes appear to shift and jostle about the canvas. Her enigmatic images invite viewers to explore their own associations in a dynamic world of color and shape.
A native of Oregon and a graduate of the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Jackie Johnson made New York City her home from 1978 to 1993 where she worked and exhibited her paintings. She has been included in a number of gallery and museum invitationals such as the Blair Art Museum and the Johnstown Art Museum in Pennsylvania, the Academy of Art in Easton, Maryland, and 55 Mercer Street Gallery in New York. ADD Collections