recent exhibitions:
Terra Nova
Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto
December 23 - January 24
lonsdalegallery.com/exhibitions/lisa-johnson-terra-nova/
Landmarks
Westland Gallery, London
April 2 - 27, 2024
The works in this collection represent a wide range of my work over the past 3 years. Inspired by landscapes in Newfoundland and Ontario, ‘Landmarks' include my painterly large-scale landscape abstractions, as well as smaller observational pieces: drawings, watercolours and plein air oil sketches.
The exhibition also includes pieces from my recent large oil sketches on canvas collection — airy and gestural works, minimalist, yet full of expression and movement.
As always in my work, this exhibition explores an ongoing artistic dialogue between drawing and painting — with gestural "mark-making” and a passion for Canadian landscapes the guiding force.
The exhibition also includes pieces from my recent large oil sketches on canvas collection — airy and gestural works, minimalist, yet full of expression and movement.
As always in my work, this exhibition explores an ongoing artistic dialogue between drawing and painting — with gestural "mark-making” and a passion for Canadian landscapes the guiding force.
Lisa Johnson, AOCA is a Canadian painter, living just north of Toronto. Johnson graduated with honours from the Ontario College of Art, where she also won the prestigious Mrs. W.O. Forsythe Award for 4th year women painters in 1996. Her work is shown by galleries across Canada, including Lonsdale Gallery in Toronto; Westland Gallery in London, James Baird Gallery in Newfoundland and Soul Gallery in Winnipeg, among others. Her works can be found in numerous private and corporate collections in U.S.A., Europe and Canada.
Lisa Johnson's paintings inquire into her experience of landscape and the climate crisis that threaten it. Johnson builds upon inspiration from on-location studies, and develops large studio works, weaving geological, corporeal, and abstract sensibilities through layers of atmospheric grounds and gestural mark-making. Seeking to communicate the emotional experience of a place, Lisa Johnson’s work reveals an ongoing dialogue between drawing and painting; abstraction and representation. Through this exploration, she creates theatrical worlds of wilderness landscape -- passionate dramas expressed with the visceral physicality of line and paint in a gestural dance.
"She is a modern romantic poised halfway between the world of purely painterly dreams and visions of grand mysterious Canadian places." --Robert Kameczura, Chicago Big Shoulder's Magazine
Lisa Johnson's paintings inquire into her experience of landscape and the climate crisis that threaten it. Johnson builds upon inspiration from on-location studies, and develops large studio works, weaving geological, corporeal, and abstract sensibilities through layers of atmospheric grounds and gestural mark-making. Seeking to communicate the emotional experience of a place, Lisa Johnson’s work reveals an ongoing dialogue between drawing and painting; abstraction and representation. Through this exploration, she creates theatrical worlds of wilderness landscape -- passionate dramas expressed with the visceral physicality of line and paint in a gestural dance.
"She is a modern romantic poised halfway between the world of purely painterly dreams and visions of grand mysterious Canadian places." --Robert Kameczura, Chicago Big Shoulder's Magazine