Clay Johnson was born and raised in Durham, NC, where he studied art and art history at Duke University, receiving a B.A. degree in 1985. He then worked for several years as assistant to painter Robert Natkin in Connecticut and New York City. In 1998 he began exhibiting paintings from his first series of mature work, which was loosely grid-based, and was inspired by the paintings of Paul Klee, such as Ancient Sound. Since then Johnson’s work has been exhibited widely at galleries across the country. Johnson currently lives and works in Laramie, Wyoming.

STRATA SERIES

When we think of past experiences, places we’ve visited, or people we’ve known, we’re not drawing on a unified continuum of experience. Rather these entities exist in our memories as collections of moments, collaged together and plastered with a label—School, Friend, Work. Whether very general (e.g., “Human”) or quite specific (“Stephen”), these concepts live in the mind as aggregations of snapshots, pasted together in no particular order, the most recent blended with the most distant (and all of the others) to create a representation of whatever the thing, place, person, or idea may be.

The Strata Paintings involve a kind of editing that’s similar to what our brains do in constructing images of the people and things that we remember. I layer many sections over one another, keeping the parts that I like and painting over the less memorable elements, or modifying them so that they fit with my idea of what the whole is (or should be). Just as our brains forget many unremarkable experiences, my paintings contain lots of layers beneath the visible surface, which nevertheless influence their perception in subtle ways.

ATOMIC SERIES

It was in the 8th century BCE that the Indian scientist and philosopher Aruni proposed that “particles too small to be seen mass together into the substances and objects of experience.” His theory may well have inspired the ancient Greek philosophers commonly regarded as the founders of Atomism—Leucippus and Democritus. Democritus theorized that everything is composed of many tiny particles (atoms) that are too small to see, and which are in constant motion. The objects that humans perceive through their senses are merely random packings and scatterings of these atoms within the void.

In abstract painting, we trade the depiction or description of something specific for the chance to wrestle with the underlying truths that govern the behavior of entities at the most basic level, whether inanimate objects, celestial bodies, human beings, or “particles too small to be seen.”

• Over the Line: New Paintings by Clay Johnson

  April 2 - April 30, 2021

• Glean : Select Gallery Artists

  December 10 - January 16, 2021

• GOOD WILL: A GROUP EXHIBITION

  DECEMBER 10 2021 - JANUARY 22, 2022

• ARCHITECTURE SHAPE & COLOR: A Group Exhibition

  August 26 - September 25, 2021

• POETS: A Group Exhibition

  JULY 15 - AUGUST 21, 2021

• GOOD WILL

  DECEMBER 7, 2023 - JANUARY 22, 2024