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Modern Painters
December 2006 - January 2007
Ed Johnson - Kristi Engle Gallery
Ed Johnson is far from being an Impressionist; but in his latest series of figural oil-and-gesso paintings on Plexiglas, he engages many of the 19th-century movement's concerns, although with a decidedly contemporary approach . The blurred pixilation, details emerging from sketchy, refracted blocks of color, and the deliberate, almost heavy-handed imprecision of his flurried brushwork perfectly evoke the vagaries of perception and memory. Yet in portraying groups of figures - mostly men in social milieus - he depicts not scenes from his own life but rather imagery captured by photographing a video as it played on his television. Johnson explores and expresses what could be termed the complexity of the mundane, imbuing his work with dramatic potential not through narrative content - he deliberately chooses interstitial moments to paint - but instead through technique. The result is less about direct experience and more about the power of art over memory.
-Shana Nys Dambrot
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