Brett Allen Johnson takes advantage of the light of the Southwest in a fantastic oil painting – Huge
It seems that our collective consciousness is burning, and some images from the Southwest of the United States seem to fully reflect its desolate terrain, barbaric weather, and strong and challenging beauty. One of them is certainly a dramatic 1904 photo of Edward Curtis, a photo of Arizona’s sacred canyon de Chelly (pronounced “Deh-shay”) with a string of Navajo riders on horseback, playing in the towering rock formations behind them.
Both records are records of indigenous people summoning the land to it for centuries, and the photo also proves a rapidly developing country in the 40 years after being forced to march as known as a “long-distance walk.” The drama of the area’s canyons, ridges, mountains, butts and countertops still fascinates us. For Brett Allen Johnson, these eternal arid landscapes inspired glowing oil paintings that attracted the legacy of Western painters such as Maynard Dixon and Georgia O’Keeffe.
Solo exhibition of Johnson’s paintings, Two worldsopen next month at the Maxwell Alexander Gallery. Most images shown here include historical sites in Capitol Reef National Park, such as the mineralized colored outcrop of “Rank Cliff, Fruita”. The exhibition also includes the exhibition’s titular painting “Two Worlds,” which shows an anonymous, completely uninhabited edge of a canyon.
Johnson’s form is brushing, somewhat simplified, though not to the extent they look cartoonish. He smoothed the rock ledges, giving the clouds a thick felt weight and illuminated the holes of Pueblos, mountains and rainstorms. Through the interaction of light, shadows and tones, he makes fleshy folds emit from his butt and highlights the unique patterns in nature.
“Technology, composition, color and paint treatment – even if we don’t plan to do that, they all say something,” Johnson said. “But the more I can grasp the core of it, the more I can simplify the painting into the parts that I find essential (essentially), and these fundamentals become tools of the vision.”
Two worlds Opened in Pasadena on September 6. Explore more about Johnson’s Instagram.
