Nicholas William Johnson (b. 1982 Honolulu, HI) lives and works in London. He studied philosophy before completing an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art. Johnson’s work has evolved to align itself conceptually with a ‘non-human turn’ a post-anthropocene motivated shift in critical theory aimed to advance such a position in the broader world. His work is about non-human life and form – specifically plant form – and proposes that by regarding that other life we learn a great deal about ourselves and our position in a multi-species world network, that we emerge within and are sustained by such a network. This position finds parallels in philosophical idealism.
Formally, Johnson’s work is primarily oil on canvas. Images are first built in a 3D virtual environment before being realised by hand on canvas in oil paint. Digital animations and film work ‘activate’ paintings in exhibitions. The virtual modelling of real plant forms and transference to canvas places his work in the tradition of painting as an ongoing investigation into the nature of re- presenting life, or the perceivable world, via optics and technologies of visualisation. Virtual re-presentation here becomes a contemporary camera obscura.
Johnson’s work investigates botanical form as a vehicle for enquiry into perception and consciousness. He employs techniques like repetitive iteration or formally mimicking fractal forms of growth in building compositions. His ongoing thesis posits that there is something innate in botanical form that is inextricably linked to our (human) and other life’s perceptual mechanics.
Recent exhibitions include: Aardenburg Biennale, NL (23); Apparatus, Foreign & Domestic, NY (22); They Regard Us As We Regard Them, Plus-one, BE (21); Botanicalmind.online, Camden Art Centre, UK (20); The John Moore’s Painting Prize, Liverpool Museums, UK (18); Inns of Molten Blue, Plus-one, BE (17); The Averard Hotel, London, UK (16); The Catlin Prize, UK (16). New Sensations, selected by Saatchi Gallery, UK (15). His work has been covered by Artsy, Elephant Magazine, Nero, Studio International, Apollo Magazine, Dazed, Harper’s Bazaar, The Financial Times, and The Times.
