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Painter Robert Johnson
by Suzanne J.E. TourtiUott
Nowhere is it more natural forfolks to teH stories
than here in the Appalachians. Like their forebears,
today's mountain folk spin tales for entertainment,
to explain natural phenomena, or to help immor
talize people they've known. Robert Johnson's
whimsical paintings give texture to these spirited
mountain tales, translating an oral tradition into
tangible visual images.
Although Johnson's work appears to be the
product of a fevered imagination, his carefully
planned paintings are the result of a serene and
well-ordered mind. In these dream worlds, he
combines his voice with those of hermits, bear
spirits and trees. The imagery is magical and sinu
ous, fantastical and humorous, based mainly on
stories about people and places close to his home
in the Celo Community of Burnsville, N.C.
Johnson's formal education was eclectic. Bom
in Venezuela, he moved to Pennsylvania as a
teenager and did undergraduate work at the Uni
versity of Louisville. For the next decade, his studies
took him across the country and back again. In the
Northeast, his instructors were disciples of such
varied schools as the Bauhaus, Abstract Expression
ism and traditional realism. His late 1960s West
Coast/Bay Area influences emphasized symbolism,
dream imagery and Jungian philosophy. The lumi
nance of late medieval Sienese painting inspired
him to go to Italy for self-study in egg tempera, an
ancient and difficult technique. Over the years, he
has adapted the egg tempera technique to acrylics
which, in combination with oils, has become his
principal medium.
After a determined international search for an
ideal place to live and work, Johnson settled on the
Burnsville area 20 years ago. To fully appreciate
Johnson's art, it's important to understand the
connection between his work and his environment
He and his family are part of the country's oldest
land trust, the intentional community of Celo [see
*Critical mass: Intentional communities in WNQ0
Green Line, Oct 1993]. Johnson believes that the
communal life of Celo empowers people to be
temporary, caring stewards of the land they occupy,
and that such an approach to land-use is consistent
with his intuitive relationship with nature.
A younger Johnson found that he was caught
between two worlds — the idealism of "beautiful
nature," he said, "and mythological and dream
imagery." His problem, as he saw it, was how to fit
the interior and exterior imagery together. Realism,
he said, did not tap his inner, experiential seif.
The wellspring of Johnson's work comes from
mountain living, sketching, meditation and listen
ing. The tales have a gentle voice: how standing
mountain got its name; the "Legend of Estatoe";
how Peggy Clauson once drowned a bear. The
paintings incorporate the stories he hears about a
place and its people. Where visual images cannot
fully tell a story, Johnson incorporates textual ele
ments. for example, "Hermit of Bald Mountain*
depicts the tale of David Crier. On the canvas,
Johnson adds the inscription, "spumed by a woman
he loved ... he claimed Bald Mountain as his own
and made his own laws." The salient details are
arranged on the
canvas in a cy
clical manner:
Crier occupiesa
wood-snail's
shell; he sits in
lonely contem
plation amid
stylized trees
and rocks; a
unicorn glows
faintly within a
solar eclipse.
Although the
text is in
Johnson's own
voice, ne says, »■
"I think [that]
stories about
specific places can generate similar images for
different people. These paintings are about people
you run into, what they get out of being there.* The
handwriting illuminates what can't be imaged, an
*adjunct to the visual* In this unique fashion,
johnson expresses his synthesis of a rich outward
reality (both his own experiences and the stories he
hears), and an equally potent, highly individualized
interior state.
He explained further: "In Nature, each ecosys
tem has its own set of forms, whether rain forest or
desert* Johnson's mood and the resulting images
are specific responses to the biological or form
level, he said. Becoming aware of that "feels more
like I'm connecting to the earth, [but] I don't have
Art Beat
continued from Z1
Pine. (704) 765-1562.
White Cold Cattery
has added an upstairs exhibition room at its
Biftmore Village location to 4 All Souk Crescent,
Ashevle. Cattery owner Kate Godshalk is inaugu
rating the new space with an exhfoit of her
porcelain artworks. (704) 274-3355.
Zone One Contemporary Cattery
wifi feature the work of internationally renowned
sculptor Dorothy GiSespie of New York. The show
opens with a reception from 5*8 p.m. on Nov. 4
and runsthrough Jan, 1.37 Biftmore Ave., Asheville.
(704)258-3088.
at Pack Place presents "Paper Pleasures: Drawings
1500*1980/ which looks at nearly500years of
Western Artfrom Italian Renaissance figure studies
to Cattfbmia Conceptualism, through Nov. 28;
and "Frammenti Dommestid," an exhibition of
mixed-media works incorporating tile fragments
by South Carolina artist/teacher Carol Pittman
through Nov. 7. (704) 253-3227.
Blue Spiral I
presents Fall Color lit with featured artists Becky
Gray; Biyant Hoi sen beck, Robert Johnson and
Michael Sherrffl. The work of Coralie Tweed Is
presented on the lower level, and Roger Smith's
Hip Hop Theatre is in the sculpturegarden. Through
Nov. 13.38 BitonoreAve.jTJW 251-0202.
Creekskle Galleries
in Banner Elk is exhibiting the works of over 200
local, regional and national potters, painters, sculp
tors, weavers and other artists through Nov. 12.
(704) 963-4288.
Folk Art Center
Guild members are featured in 'The Indelible
Object," through Nov. 14 in the Main Gallery.
Milepost 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. (704)
298-7928.
Galax Artworx
is hosting Asheville painter Chad Adair's first solo
exhibition, through Nov. 21. The gallery continues
to show works of the Meaders and Howell families
(North Georgia folk pottery); And rew Costine (fine
woodwork); and Feng Wei (mixed media). (704)
254-1170 or 258-9738.
Mint Museum of Art
presents paintings and photographs by Susan
Brenner through Nov. 21. "Rivers of Gold: Pre
Columbian Treasures from Sitio Conte," featuring
123 pieces of gold work from an ancient Panama
nian cemetery site, through Jan. 2.2730Randolph
Road, Charlotte, NC (704) 337-2000.
Smoky Mountrin Art Center
features drawings and three-dimensional works by
Venezuelan artist Nelson Rgallo and works in a
variety of meefia by Puerto Rican artist Annaruiz
Bayon, through Nov. 30.103 Depot St., Bryson
City, N.C (704)480-2403.
Touchstone Cattery
continues to show the works of photographer Dr.
Kenneth Sinish; glass artist MarkW. Sanders; jewelry
designer Mary Heald; potter Jeni Babin; box-maker
Lou Woks; painters Carol Bomer; Ernie Howard
and SladeTanner; multi-media artistlrisSandkuhler;
etcher/painter JosephCulpepper; watercolorist
Mary Alice Braukman; papier mache sculptor Basil
Polevoy; and soapstonesculptor Alice Massengale.
Also on efisplay are photographs by Carol Faust;
sculptures by Mark Strom; commentary art by Joe
Bruneau; wind sculptures by Michael Tarillion;
raku pottery by James Franklin; flash-fired raku by
John Sherrill; paintings by Robert Smet; and pot
tery by Tom Ferguson. 318 N. Main St.,
Hendersonville. (704) 692-2191.
UNCA's University Gallery
hosts "Reflections" — 50 black-and-white photos
by Alice Hardin, the culmination of her work
toward a BFA at UNCA (704) 251 -6559.
—■
■DEER HUNTER*
a coherent mythology that fits together—it's all in
bits and pieces."
That Sienese influence — narrative, highly de
tailed and polished — is strongly evident in all his
work. All the forms are simplified yet intricately
patterned and modulated, using the flattened spa
tial effects often seen in folk painting. Stylized
vegetation and animal or geographic forms are
often deeply symbolic, lushly curving and puking
with intuitive harmonies.
Johnson has taught painting for many years,
primarily in North Carolina, and now teaches egg
tempera fresco technique at Duke University. A
number of his frescoes can be seen in the Burnsville
area—one at the Burnsville post office. He exhibits
regularly throughout the region, and is repre
sented in the Fall Color III exhibit at Blue Spiral I in
downtown Asheville, through Nov. 13. For more
information, call (704) 251-0202.
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