Mitchell Johnson, “Horse and Sunflowers” (2025), 16 x 26 inches, oil on canvas (© Mitchell Johnson, 2025)
On Could 20–24, 2025, Mitchell Johnson will exhibit small work at Galerie Mercier in Paris. This present contains compositions from San Francisco, Paris, Newfoundland, Ventimiglia, and New York Metropolis.
Johnson has been visiting Paris and portray in France since 1989, when he was a graduate scholar at Parsons College of Design. The 12 work at Galerie Mercier are intimate works spanning the final seven years, portraying acquainted scenes reworked by Johnson’s distinct tackle colour and scale.
Mitchell Johnson, “Ventimiglia (Six Boats)” (2024), 16 x 20 inches, oil on canvas (© Mitchell Johnson, 2025)
A lot has been written about Johnson’s reverence for artwork historical past and his influences. In his personal phrases:
It’s a bit ironic that individuals have come to know my work via reproductions—on social media, in movies, and on tv in Italy, Monaco, and France — as a result of the topic of my work is portray. I’m targeted on colour, composition, and scale — the act of seeing, the act of portray. Experiencing the work in particular person issues. Work considered on Instagram are visible rumour, visible rumors.
At each Galerie Mercier and 425 Market Avenue in San Francisco, folks can see for themselves that I’m much less a realist than a composer. Assembling shapes, colours and textures that strike me as mysterious and sophisticated is an ongoing problem. The selections to incorporate or take away components are made intuitively. Together with the Golden Gate Bridge in a portray feels harmful. I’m actually not the primary to do it — all the artists I revere have: Fairfield Porter, Matisse, Corot, Vallotton. Seeing the portray in particular person, it turns into clear that the bridge isn’t being described a lot because it’s performing — a personality in service to the portray. The viewer is free to put in writing the allegory.
Whereas my work attracts closely on French artwork historical past, in addition to Josef Albers and Giorgio Morandi, it was the images of William Eggleston that set me on my present path. I noticed his main exhibition at Haus der Kunst in Munich in 2009, simply as my work was turning into extra conceptual — much less about capturing a selected place or time of day. Eggleston opened my eyes to the opportunity of working with lifeguard chairs, icebergs, water towers, row boats, rooftops, bridges. He gave me the concept that these topics may function scaffolding for what I wished to discover via colour.
I met Eggleston as soon as in Palo Alto and instructed him how necessary his work was to me — and that I believed he had been deeply influenced by French painters. A giant smile unfold throughout his face.
Johnson’s work are within the everlasting collections of over 35 museums. His present Big Work From New England, California and Newfoundland continues at 425 Market Avenue, San Francisco, via Could 30. In June, his work can be included in group reveals on the Glass Home in New Canaan, Connecticut, and on the Cape Cod Museum of Artwork in Dennis, Massachusetts.
Johnson will attend the closing reception of his exhibition at Galerie Mercier on Saturday, Could 24, 4–6pm (40 rue de l’Université 75007 Paris).
Mitchell Johnson, “Paris (Green Window)” (2025), 19 x 27 inches, oil on canvas (© Mitchell Johnson, 2025)
