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| Mitchell Johnson and H.S.H. at Villa Les Camelias July 3, 2024 Villa Les Camelias had a tenth anniversary celebration July 3, 2024 in Cap d'Ail, France, and in attendance was H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco. Mitchell Johnson and Prince Albert did a color changing exercise during the visit. The exhibition "La Revelation de Meyreuil" is on view at Musee Villa Les Camelias through September 29, 2024. |
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Pink Chair (Race Point), 2024, 36x24 inches, oil on canvas. © 2024 Mitchell Johnson.
I’ve been interested in the beach for as long as I can remember. It took a while to realize that what was intriguing me is the way man-made color separates from the backdrop of sky, water and sand. Even without the strong light of a sunny day, the dreamy space at the beach is unlike any other. Perhaps that’s what calls so many people to the seaside.
When I include umbrellas, towels or chairs in a composition, I’m turning them into paintings, I'm using them to talk about painterly space. As Deborah Butterfield put it so well on the occasion of her new exhibit of sculptures: "P.S. these are not horses".
P.S. these are not beach chairs.
As much as a painting might begin referencing a chair right in front of me, or a photo I carefully arranged, the chairs in the paintings never really exist. The Pink Chair in this post was in fact a blue chair I saw on Cape Cod and was able to draw and paint from life. Then in the studio, the color of the stripes kept changing until the stripes were completely covered and painted dull pink. The dull pink chair sat around the studio for months, sometimes it was turned to the wall, sometimes it was staring at me from across the room. Finally while mixing an orange for a new painting, a voice in my head sent me to get the painting and quickly I reworked the stripes finally achieving the right combination of clarity and surprise in the colors.
In 2012, the writer Chris Busa, described this process in an article for Provincetown Arts:
“If many of Johnson’s paintings are titled after the places that inspired them, no such places actually exist. Each one is a collage of compressed intimacies spread out over the months it takes to paint them. He has done what Edwin Dickinson called “Premier Coup”, in which a painting is completed outdoors in one blow. Yet his typical practice is to hold a painting for several months, or more, in the studio, to see if a painting stands the test of repeated looking, often involving the process of memory revision, where a succession of impressions gained over weeks or months is expressed as continuous flow.”
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| Mitchell Johnson and Hélène Bonafous at the opening reception, May 16, 2024 |
BFM Nice live television interview - French
Prazzle Magazine Interview - English
MonacoInfo television interview - French
Donald Kuspit review in WhiteHot Magazine - English
InMenlo article - English
La Gazette Drouot - French and English
France Bleu Radio Interview - French
American Art Collector Article - English
La Gazette de Monaco article - English and French
Monaco Tribune article - English and French
Nice Tourist Office - English, French and Italian
Cote D'Azur Tourism Office - English, French and Italian
Provence-Alpes-Cote D'Azur Travel Office - English, French and Italian
Miramar Hotel article - French
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| May 27, 2024 New Yorker Magazine |
On the occassion of the museum retrospective, La revelation de Meyreuil, Mitchell Johnson appeared on live TV in Nice, France May 16, 2024.
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| Monaco Matin, May 14, 2024 |
La Villa Les Camélias va se parer le temps d'une exposition, des œuvres du peintre américain Mitchell Johnson du 17 mai au 29 septembre. Le musée intègre cette exposition dans le cadre des célébrations de son dixième anniversaire.
Une évolution à travers le monde
Reconnu à l'international, l'artiste de 60 ans a voyagé dans plusieurs pays pour s'inspirer en plus d'approfondir et complexifier son travail. Ses œuvres font partie de 30 collections permanentes de musées à travers la planète.
Originaire de New York, le peintre s'est tourné vers la Californie pour perfectionner ses techniques auprès d'un des pionniers de l'art non-figuratif, Sam Francis, et au sein de la Parsons School of Design.
C'est à l'occasion de ses voyages en Europe que Mitchell Johnson a le plus étoffé son style. Les paysages qu'il a découverts, de la Suède à l'Italie, en passant par la France notamment, l'ont inspiré pour forger sa personnalité artistique.
Meyreuil, un déclic artistique
Mais c'est une petite commune proche d'Aix-en-Provence, Meyreuil, qui retient l'attention du peintre en 1989, faisant évoluer son œuvre au fil de ses passages répétés. L'exposition emprunte d'ailleurs le nom de la ville : La révélation de Meyreuil.
Elle réunira 40 œuvres de Mitchell Johnson retraçant 35 ans de carrière. Celle d'un « post-moderniste », selon le critique d'art américain Donald Kuspit dans un article du magazine spécialisé Hyperallergic en janvier dernier.
