Mitchell Johnson: Paintings from North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Morocco (Selected Work 1979-2025)

"This September, in what has been an annual event for the past five years, Johnson taught a week-long workshop at Castle Hill in Truro and exhibited his paintings in the gallery there. 'We're not here to be creative,' Johnson said to workshop participants on the first day of class. He approaches color like a technician. At the front of the class, he held up three pieces of different-colored paper attached like a scroll. A thin strip of green paper snaked across all the colors."

"He continued with this lesson, placing a brown rectangle on a sheet of peach Color-aid paper - sheets used as a system for studying color theory. "It looks like the end of the world," he said. The brown was a full stop on the light, buoyant ground. Then he put the rectangle on his sweater, a darker shade of brown. "Now, it's the Sun," he said."

Flea Street in Menlo Park exhibits Mitchell Johnson's Paintings from North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Morocco (Selected Work 1979-2025) from November 15 through December 20. The exhibition includes new works from recent trips to Brazil and Peru, previously unseen paintings from Morocco, and several very early works for contextual support. Johnson focuses on color perception and art historical inquiry across his work. Johnson teaches an annual master color class at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill where demonstrations with Color-aid paper show how identical colors shift appearance against different grounds, using a green strip and brown-rectangle examples.

Read at Hyperallergic