Lucky Logo, 2008
Lucky Logo, 2008
Opening Reception: May 16, 2008 6:00 - 9:00 PM
On View: May 16, 2008 - June 14, 2008
Stacie Johnson makes portraits of common objects in unfamiliar arrangements. Informed broadly by mysticism, Johnson borrows from Feng Shui, Astrology, tarot and other systems used to divine the unknown and the mysterious as a means of creating idiosyncratic object and subject specific symbolism. In her still-lifes and abstractions, Johnson explores the power innate to personal objects and arrangements alongside the power intrinsic to painting, its formal relationships between color and shape, and the arcane meaning found there.
For her SOLO exhibition, Johnson embarked on a psychic investigation of ThreeWalls and its staff TEAM, producing a series of ‘site-specific’ paintings that investigate the detritus, inhabitants, and physical space of the organization. Mixing in personal ways of ordering and gathering information, the forms, sizes and hanging locations of the exhibition become symbolic. In simultaneously investigating synchronicities about the gallery, Johnson realized that the final day of her exhibition, June 13, 2008, fell on ThreeWalls’ fifth anniversary.
A selection of images alongside text by Katie Scanlan will elaborate on the process of investigating and creating the work.
Stacie Johnson graduated with an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2004. Her work has been shown in Chicago and throughout the United States at Old Gold (Chicago), Contemporary Art Workshop (Chicago), Jody Monroe Gallery (Milwaukee), Five Points Art House (San Francisco) and the Ulrich Museum of Art (Wichita). Johnson received a residency fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center in 2005. Her work has appeared in the NY Arts Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out Chicago and New American Paintings, among others. She was recently nominate by NewCity magazine as “one to watch” in Chicago’s visual arts community.
Links:
Weird Deer Interview with Johnson
Team Threewalls, 2008
