ERIC JOHNSON RECENT WORKS
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY BERGAMOT STATION ARTS CENTER 2525 MICHIGAN AVE., E-1 SANTA MONICA, CA 90404 P 310-453-0909 F 310-453-0908 www.williamturnergallery.com
ERIC JOHNSON: BEYOND SURFACE Eric Johnson is a magician. No bunny and hat tricks: he is a magician with materials. What he does is beyond ordinary technical expertise. Somehow, Eric Johnson can conjure flawless beauty out of nasty chemicals and foul fumes. His ability to shape plastic and manipulate its surface seems almost limitless. He playfully blurs the boundaries between the living and the inert, the organic and the inorganic. In his hands, the pigmented, polished surface of polyester resin can look equally like soft marble, the hard gleaming surface of a California hot rod, the nacreous inner surface of a sea shell, or the most delicate, intimate part of feminine flesh. Sometimes he makes plastic look like wood; sometimes he makes wood look like plastic. It could be said that he carries in his art a cult of artificiality reminiscent of Des Esseintes, Huysmans’ decadent hero in A Rebours. But his love of plastics and automotive materials is more wholesome than decadent. It has more to do with a permanently renewed sense of marvel and wonder of what they can do, of the many shapes they can take. The tradition that Eric Johnson proudly inscribes himself into is Southern California art as it came to be defined in the 1960s by the handful of artists who claimed plastics, resins, industrial materials and processes as tools to create the impeccably crafted objects of the LA Look, what Peter Plagens called “the readily and unashamedly perfumy objet-d’art”1. Eric Eric in his San Pedro studio. Photograph courtesy Eric Minh Swenson Johnson’s highly polished surfaces, his seamless, flawless works have a definite kinship to Finish Fetish objects, and the strong emphasis he places on craftsmanship pertains to the same attitude. He thus perpetuates one of the essential paradox of the Finish Fetish object: the better crafted the object is and the more time-consuming its making was, the less the hand of the artist is visible in the end result, and the more the work looks like it was mass-produced. However, whereas in the 1960s using plastics and automotive materials to make art was still a groundbreaking act of transgression, a generation afterward their use had become totally assimilated; the polyester resin and catalyst and the spray gun had become as much a part of the standard panoply of artist tools as the brush and canvas. In the case of Eric Johnson, the smell and look of automotive paints were part of his earliest memories. He loved hanging around the shop of his father, a renowned LA car body maker. Eric’s father counted among his friends Von Dutch Holland, a famous “hot-rod striper” 2 who influenced a number of artists in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Eric remembers that one day, his father finally let him watch Von Dutch stripe a car: “Von Dutch circled the car many many times before starting. Then, he opened the car door, on the seat was two cans of beer in brown 1. Peter Plagens, 1974, Sunshine Muse: Contemporary Art on the West Coast, New York: Praeger, p. 122. 2. Ibid, p. 79
paper bags that he bought at Circus Liquor, he pounded them down, then blew through striping the car in about 20 minutes”. Since these childhood years Eric has nursed a passion for customizing cars and to this day, he always has a car project in his studio in the process of being repaired, restored and repainted. They co-exist alongside his artworks, without any apparent hierarchy. Of all the California artists that Eric Johnson looks up to, two in particular became his mentors, and eventually his close friends: De Wain Valentine and Craig Kauffman. From Valentine he inherited the love for and familiarity with polyester resin - affectionately referred to as just “resin”. If Johnson’s work takes after Valentine’s, however, it is only the earlier, opaque, work in polyester and fiberglass. Unlike Valentine, who was interested in translucence, transparency, and the interior volumes of sculpture, Eric Johnson is mostly interested in surface, texture and color, the “skin” of the object as Valentine would call it. The process he perfected over the years is one in which clear, then pigmented resin is poured in many layers in molds revolving around two different axes on a metal frame, a contraption he has invented so that he wouldn’t have to spin the molds around until the resin sets and his arms ache. The result is a hollow sculpture, whose walls are never thicker than one inch. Each layer is pigmented differently, bringing an incredible richness and subtlety of effects to the final color. In fact, he may be closer to Craig Kauffman in the way he explores color and uses it as a structural element of the work. The way Johnson’s wall pieces in relief jut out and occupy the space also recalls the commanding presence of Kauffman “painting-sculpture hybrids” 3. Neither Eric Johnson nor his art, however, belong to the past. While he has a definite sense of allegiance to Finish Fetish materials and surfaces, it never stifled the strong individuality of his work. His work differs from the work of his elders in many ways. Eric Johnson’s work was never purely abstract. Rather, it is abstracted, but often directly inspired by natural shapes, feminine curves, soft rolling hills, waves, even the helixes of DNA sequences. In his earlier work bizarre organic shapes, in turn whimsical, disturbing, or erotic, seemed inspired Eric pouring resin in his San Pedro studio. Photograph courtesy Marshall Astor by mutant life forms or strange alternative universes. His lines are now cleaner, his shapes simpler, yet, if still faithful to the letter, in spirit they have drifted further away from Finish Fetish. 3. Allan, Ken D., Lucy Bradnock, and Lisa Turvery. 2011. For People Who Know the Difference: Defining the Pop Art Sixties. In Pacific standard time : Los Angeles art, 1945-1980. Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum, p. 156.
His surfaces are cool, as the surfaces of Finish Fetish were, in the sense that the hand of the artist is removed; there is nothing gestural or expressive about them. Yet his works are un-cool, because the objects are invested with literal meaning, a very un-cool engagement with the world. The resin becomes the vessel of Johnson’s voice, of his commentary, whether intimate, humorous, metaphysical, social or political. He often encloses in his pieces objects of particular meaning to him, personal memorabilia. Most viewers remain unaware, yet through this gesture the works have become symbolic objects, intimate reliquaries. In a way, they are invested with magical powers, just as Native American fetishes are4. Dark money, a large piece created for this show, is a literal and direct reaction to the current presidential campaign and the critical role finances play behind the scenes. It is made of twenty-four pieces that spell out in Morse code the words “dark money”. In a nod to his first love, ceramics, and one of its heroes, John Mason, Eric has left part of the surface of the resin on Dark Money unpolished, to evoke different textured glazes in ceramic and show some of the process involved in the making. The Maize Project, re-installed for the first time since its creation in 2008 at the Torrance Art Museum, include 378 highly polished and colorful resin kernels mounted on a metal structure. The piece is a commentary on the importance of communities, of Native American culture, and on the role that corn has played in the history of this country. Its sheer scale, 14 feet tall by 8 feet wide render it abstract; yet it is a figurative Dark Money installed at William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica representation of a section of Maize corn. Johnson had been using the kernel shape for nearly two decades when he decided to give it a whole new symbolic and narrative dimension, by assembling many of them in the Maize but also by inviting many people to participate in the making of the kernels. The process and the end result mirror each other, both celebrating the belief that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Family, friends, friends of friends, community members were invited to make their own kernel, to pick their colors, and to insert personal items in them during the pours. Some of the items were anecdotal, some poignantly personal. The Maize Project is a memorial to the communal spirit that presided over its making but also to the many fragments of individual lives enclosed in it. With all the different colors, textures, and the unexpected objects enclosed in the kernels, it is also a really fun piece to look at and circle around. 4. Eric Johnson’s grandmother was in fact half Cree, one of the largest group of Native Americans in North America.
It is not a coincidence if Eric Johnson’s most ambitious project to date was a communal one. It was, in part, sheer pragmatism: The Maize Project would have taken years to complete if many collaborators had not been involved. It is also because Eric Johnson is as far removed from the cliché of the tortured artist working in isolation in his studio as is conceivable. Social, gregarious, warm and generous, he is a spontaneous and natural community organizer. When I visited him during the preparation of this exhibition the studio was literally a beehive, buzzing and bustling with activity and chatter. He had told me excitedly on the phone this was going to be the big pour day. When I arrived, I was struck by the atmosphere of seriousness and concentration - pouring resin is an activity that commands full attention - but also by how relaxed and joyful it all seemed. A core group of people were tending the revolving molds, a few took photographs, others had come by for a chat, a glass of wine, or just The Maize Project, William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica to check out the scene. There were some younger artists willing to learn the art of molding polyester resin, hired help, neighbors, family and friends. Eric had time for everybody, as available to open a bottle of wine as to answer a question about how many drops of catalyst to add to the resin, or what is the correct color sequence for a particular piece. And if, oops, this one was supposed to have silver, not gold – never mind, there is always room for improvisation. Some of the pieces in this show are intimate in scale and sensual; others have commanding, almost aggressive physical presence and direct meanings that call upon the viewer. As I was typing this essay and trying to summarize my thoughts about Eric Johnson’s art, I realized how complex, rich and diverse it is. It stands at the confluence of many influences, some of which may seem at first conflicting. I also realized that the ability to unify diverging artistic aspirations may be one of the most essential traits of Eric’s work. His art is a very direct, unfiltered projection of his psyche, as rich, as complex as he is, and always powerfully engaging.
-Rachel Rivenc, 2012
PINK BOX, 16” x 16” x 8”, composite resin & automotive pigment
UBUNG, 36” x 18” x 8”, fiberglass & automotive lacquer
JUST THE THOUGHT OF DARK, 20” x 20” x 6”, composite resin & automotive pigment
WHITE MONEY, 20” x 20” x 6”, composite resin & automotive pigment
SOFT SLEVE, 20” x 20” x 6”, composite resin & automotive pigment
LOOP HOLES, 20” x 20” x 6”, composite resin & automotive pigment
CALANDO, 16” x 16” x 8”, composite resin & automotive pigment
CALANDO, 16” x 16” x 8”, composite resin & automotive pigment
GARRA, 16” x 16” x 14”, composite resin & automotive pigment
GARRA, 16” x 16” x 14”, composite resin & automotive pigment
PINKY ON BOB (Madame X series), resin, wood, steel (in 3 parts), 132x16x16
DARK MONEY, 40” x 243” x 6”, composite resin & automotive pigment
ALEJANDRO GEHRY
Empires Make Up #12, acrylic on canvas, 48” x 72”
DARK MONEY, 40” x 243” x 6”, composite resin & automotive pigment
THE MAIZE PROJECT, 164” x 96” x 96”, composite resin & automotive pigment
EMERALD HEART, 20” x 20” x 9”, composite resin & automotive pigment
OCEAN STUDY, 20” x 20” x 7.5”, composite resin & automotive pigment