Mitchell Johnson Painting "Medford (Red)" in the November 2023 WSJ Magazine

 

 There was a Mitchell Johnson painting in every issue of the 2023 WSJ Magazine. Mitchell partnered with the Wall Street Journal from 2018-2023.

Photo of Mitchell Johnson with Sam Francis paintings in Palo Alto, California November 1990

 

After finishing his MFA at Parsons School of Design in New York City, Mitchell Johnson moved to Palo Alto in October, 1990 to work for the famous artist, Sam Francis.

Sol LeWitt advised Mitchell to make the move.

There's an article about Mitchell following Sol's advice in the Nob Hill Gazette.

Two of Mitchell's paintings were included in the exhibit, Circle of Sam, at the Bakersfield Museum of Art May-September, 2023. You can see a video of the exhibit here.

Thanks to the Sam Francis Foundation for creating the exhibit and the invitation to participate.

Mitchell Johnson Faroe Islands Painting in the December 4, 2023 New Yorker Magazine

 

Mitchell Johnson Reyjavik painting in the December 25, 2023 New Yorker Magazine

 

Mitchell Johnson Sinalunga Painting in the December 17, 2023 New York Times Magazine

 

"Luxembourg," 2022 appears in both the January 15, 2024 New Yorker Magazine and the February print issue of Artforum

 

"Luxembourg," 2022 16x16 inches oil/canvas

This painting, "Luxembourg," 2022, appears in both the January 15, 2024 issue of the New Yorker and the February issue of Artforum Magazine. If you click on the image above you'll see a higher quality photo that you can zoom in on to see the paint, the surface. This little kiosk in the Luxembourg garden has intrigued me for years but I only recently made a few paintings of it. When I first went to France in 1989 I was in Paris briefly and I would go for very long runs that often went through the Luxembourg and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I saw this kiosk. Like all of my paintings, this isn't so much a record of what was there as it is a jumping off point for some shapes and colors that I'm assembling that feel mysterious, baffling, complex. The chair could be any color, any location - whatever the painting needs. The way that the painting is built, the touch of the paint application are both very important and have evolved over 40 years. Each are impossible to consciously strategize or control. The painting may not work and it might get destroyed. Time will tell.

I talk about my painting process at length in various interviews. See Savvy Painter, Painting Perceptions, Huffington Post, I Like Your Work Podcast, Studio Break Podcast.

Donald Kuspit has written a lot about my work and you can read two of his essays at Whitehot Magazine.

There are two exhibits in 2024:

January-February, 2024
Selected Work 1988-2024
Flea Street Menlo Park

May 17-September 29, 2024
La révélation de Meyreuil, an exhibition of 50 small paintings
Musée de la Villa les Camélias in Cap d’Ail, France

Mitchell Johnson Exhibit "La révélation de Meyreuil" at Musée de la Villa les Camélias, Cap d'Ail / May 17-September 29, 2024

 Save the date, May 17, 2024 is the opening of the retrospective exhibit, "La révélation de Meyreuil",

at Musée de la Villa les Camélias, Cap d'Ail, France. The exhibit runs May 17-September 29, 2024.

"In 1989, at the age of 25, Mitchell Johnson left New York for his first trip to Europe — a voyage that would launch a lifetime of interaction with color. Landing in Gotland, Sweden, and making his way south to Meyreuil, France, he was drawn to and overwhelmed by the new landscapes and unfamiliar colors and patterns. Driven by a powerful instinct to translate what he saw into paintings, he returned again and again to work on location and to study in museums."

"Meyreuil Fiat," 1989 6x12 inches oil/panel

You can read more about the exhibit in this review by Donad Kuspit at Whitehot Magazine

and also in this article at Hyperallergic.