Matthew Johnson

Hometown: Greater Detroit, Mich.
My drawings and paintings are composites of interdisciplinary research that mediate the subtle space between perceived memory and personal projection. I aim to embody space, time, and the elusive essence or spirit of subjective and nuanced subjects. My work responds to personal, experienced phenomena with ontological organization through a process-driven and investigative practice. Multimedia collecting, research, and observation supply images and artifacts that compose a visual language I use to respond to or capture an experience, while studio rituals of appropriation, collage, tracing, copying, projection, printing and revision afford me the ability to confront the temporal element of experience, and respond with some agency. This process of recollection and response results in something wholly new and alchemical.
Website: MatthewRyanJohnson.com

"Tot Finder," 2021
Collage, gouache, acrylic paint, wooden panel
6 x 4 in.

Stylized orange windowpane silhouetted in black, with bushes near the bottom on each side. The window area has collaged text, drawn designs, and a red circle in it.

"Mementos (glyphs)," 2021
Ink, tracing paper
Various sizes

Twenty sheets of tracing paper are placed in a grid pattern. Each page has a simple ink line drawing on it. These include a birthday cake, a birthday hat, a welcome mat, stars, figures, and other "mementos" drawn by the artist.

"Gate (Snowblind)," 2021
Watercolor, colored pencil, paper
30 x 22.5 in.

A watercolor depicts a small child dressed in red and black laying on their side in the snow. Footprints lead to and away from the child. An area with scribbled lines in red, yellow, and blue fills the bottom area.