Celia Johnson

About

I have a modernist interest in the play of color and form, which manifests itself in a non-referential geometric abstraction. I enjoy structuring figure/ground relationships and exploring the push-pull of shapes in the space within the edges of the rectangle.

 

Saturated flat color fields are layered and shuffled in degrees of reveal to float above or recede beneath the picture plane. As in the turning of a puzzle piece or the shifting surface of collage, I enjoy putting things together.

 

While the work is formally intuitive, it is calculated in its design and plotting, playing juxtaposed elements and relational situations against one another in the layering and building of the planar surfaces. This is the continuation of a utopian fascination with color as form that began in my childhood.

 

Many influences have been at work, although no single reference is immediate. I am directly influenced by nothing, yet I feed on everything: Renaissance ornament; the symbols and forms of medieval heraldry; Kandinsky’s pioneering abstraction; the experiments in kinetic flat space of the Russian avant-garde; Sophie Taeuber-Arps’s ground-breaking inventiveness; Ben Nicholson’s reliefs; Sol LeWitt’s systems; Ellsworth Kelly’s accurate purity; Elizabeth Murray’s bold play; Agnes Martin’s dedication to the transcendent power of beauty  -  and always color.

Original Artwork

All prices are exclusive of VAT (if applicable) and shipping costs.

Cycels (Series) 2017

Encaustic Paint, Wood Panel

25 x 25 cm / 10 x 10 in

Complete grid of Cycels, 25 pieces in total, 22.000 €

Individual Cycle, € 1.000,– a piece

Celia Johnson

Education

1998-2001 ITP, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University (MPS)

1988-1990 Visiting Student, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf

1975 California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA (BFA)

Selected exhibitions

 

2017.

DIALECTICAL PRAXIS | Celia Johnson & Donald Martiny,

Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, CT 

Made In Paint, Sam & Adele Golden Foundation, The SAGG, New Berlin, NY

FICTION (With Only Daylight Between Us) v.2, Ox-Bow School of Art, Saugatuck, MI; Raygun Projects,Toowoomba, Australia; University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA; Class Room, Coventry, England

Nasty Women Exhibition: Durham, The Carrack Modern Art, Durham, NC

ArtSpace, Raleigh, NC (September 2017)

Ackland Art Museum of UNC Chapel Hill, Museum Store Gallery,

curated by Alice Southwick (Fall 2017)

 

2016.

FICTION (With Only Daylight Between Us) v.2, Corridor Projects, Dayton, OH

Also traveling to Boecker Contemporary, Heidelberg, Germany 

Curated by Jeffrey Courtland Jones

New Geometry, Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, CT

Art in America On Tour, Elizabeth Stone Harper Gallery, Presbyterian College, Clinton, SC. Curated by Julie Torres and Ann Stoddard

 

2015.

Holiday Exhibition, Fred Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, CT

WONDERMENT, Hunt Hill Farm - Silo Gallery, New Milford, CT

Curated by Jessica Jane Russell

Clint Jukkala & John Newman with works by Celia Johnson, 

Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, CT

InFocus Gallery | Works on Paper, GreenHill Space for NC Art, Greensboro, NC

Some Assembly Required, The Curator Gallery, New York, NY

Curated by Mark Wethli

 

2014.

21 and Counting, The Painting Center, New York, NY

COLOR | FORM, Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill, NC (solo)

Patterson | Suggs | Johnson, LIGHT Art + Design, Chapel Hill, NC 

 

2013.

Little Somethings, ParisCONCRET, Paris, France

Winter Show, GreenHill Space for NC Art, Greensboro, NC

Form Gesture Vision, 311 West Martin Street Gallery, Raleigh, NC

North Carolina Artists Exhibition, Duke Energy Center for Performing Arts, Raleigh, NC (Juror, William Dunlap) 

Open Source, Visual Art Exchange Gallery, Raleigh, NC - Juried by Elysia Borowy-Reeder, Executive Director, Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, NC

Exchange Gallery, Visual Art Exchange Gallery, Raleigh, NC 

 

2012. 

This & That, Harris Warren Gallery, Wake Forest, NC 

 

2011. 

Paintings for Midsummer, HighPoint Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (solo)

POST, Herman Street Studios, Philadelphia, PA

 

 

Awards | Residencies

 

2016.

The Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts, Exploratory Residency Grant,

New Berlin, NY   May-June 2016

 

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA

Artist Resident and Grant Recipient

 

 

2015.

Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT

Artist Resident and Grant Recipient

 

Ninth Annual International Encaustic Conference, Provincetown, MA 

Scholarship Tuition Award