Michael Johnson
Video tour: Matthew Johnson 'Purlieu'
OLSEN GalleryJune 2022
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Related exhibition
Matthew Johnson Purlieu
Janet Hawley
May 2013
Big Fish
Art Collector
May 2013
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An Interview with Michael Johnson
Internationally recognised abstract painter talks to Tim Olsen about the inspiration and the unique language employed in his recent work. Includes archival footage of Johnson experimenting with pigments in the landscape and rare glimpses into his Sydney studio.
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Michael Johnson New Paintings 2009
13/5/11
When Michael Johnson isn’t painting, he likes to go fishing at night, says Joyce Morgan in The Sydney Morning Herald. At night, “you have to feel what’s going on – it’s all communication by touch,” he says. Asking his students to paint blindfold gave them that same sense. Despite the shimmering bands of jewel like colour: “After a while you get a grasp on it, like the body movements of a dancer.”
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John McDonald
07/05/11
Despite contrasting views of the world, two artists find common ground by putting emotion before technique, writes John McDonald.
The conundrum of how to express one’s thoughts and feelings in a way that doesn’t become illustrative or didactic lies at the heart of abstract art. Many artists consider abstraction to be a logical progression, believing that once they have crossed the lines that separates them from strictly representational art there is no turning back. This made it doubly startling last week to see Michael Johnson’s extraordinary drawing of a snow leopard completes as part of last year’s artist’s project at Taronga Park Zoo.
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Joyce Morgan
3/5/11
For artist Michael Johnson, size most definitely matters..
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Elissa Blake
16 May 2009
Michael Johnson is rummaging in his back trouser pocket. “I have some rocks in here,” he says, pulling them out and unfolding his palm. A cluster of river stones sits in his hand. He gives one to me and one to the photographer. “They are for luck. Hold them in your hands,” he says stuffing his own hand back in his pocket. “I'll keep mine in here.”
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Annemarie Lopez
May 09
Abstract artist Michael Johnson's vivid grid-like paintings use colour to create energy, His works are inspired by Australian colours - rivers, oceans and earth pigments, even the luminescent patina of a beetle.
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