Elizabeth Price Johnson and I have been working together for over 4 years now. When she first moved back to PA from San Francisco, I was one of the first people she reached out to. Here is her Artist's Statement from 2014.
“My oil paintings join unrelated subjects in a groundless, airy imaginary environment. I call this work "anti-story" because it thwarts the urge to make sense of the world through storytelling. I depict parts of photographs as if they occupy space, and distort or wrap images on planes like wallpaper, using digital manipulation as a tool and hand-built paper models. Fragmenting and mixing images separates them temporarily from meaning, diminishing but not erasing its power. I enjoy looking at combinations of images that have no obvious reason for appearing together, those with few preexisting, well-worn associations, and feeling their lack of purpose. Currently, I paint on small surfaces and finish a painting in a two or three sessions, working quickly in order to train myself to let the odd combinations happen. Working in a dream-like space challenges the idea of causality, and encourages viewers to devise their own stories: the desire to make sense of chaos is framed and resolved by the unexpected.”
Here is a handful of photographs I have taken of her work.
