Julienne Johnson
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ARTIST STATEMENT
I make art
to communicate
what I cannot communicate with words:
what I need to say about it all;
what’s going on in the world around us;
what I cannot fix;
what I wish I could make different with my paint,
or clay, or wood, metal or the sledge hammer my husband gave me.
I work desperately hard at it all - hands first:
putting on, taking off,
scraping, sanding, sawing, soldering, pounding.
It takes a whole lot of passion and persistence
when you are trying so desperately
to trade ashes for beauty.
INTENT and DESCRIPTION: I am working from the viscera; yet each artwork is somehow, deeply considered and elaborately realized: a global portrait; a visual poem of the world in this frame of time. All that you see partially or completely in each painting is meaningful, personal and specific - including transferred print in various languages. There is a physicality to the work and it is often aerobic; I'm all over it, running from shape to shape and color to color, until I am satisfied with the whole. During the in-between, creation and demolition takes place simultaneously. I find it difficult to speak about the work. That's why I have to make it. I would like the end result to be enough. I would like the artwork to be the last word.
ASHES FOR BEAUTY: the subject of Johnson's work from 2009 - 2011 will be documented in an upcoming book of the same name.
ASHES FOR BEAUTY . . . THE BOOK - SPRING 2012
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