Mark Moore Fine Art is very pleased to present an Exclusive ARTSY Online Exhibition of new work by artist CLAY JOHNSON. This series of ten new works – THE ATOMIC PAINTINGS – is being shown for the first time anywhere. This is also Johnson’s inaugural exhibition with this gallery.
VIEW THIS SHOW NOW AT: https://bit.ly/456DeLy
Clay Johnson was born in Durham, NC, where he later studied art and art history at Duke University, receiving a B.A. degree in 1985. He then worked for several years as assistant to painter Robert Natkin in Connecticut and New York City. He began showing paintings from his first series of mature work in 1998 and has since exhibited in galleries across the United States and in Europe. His work is represented in collections around the world. Clay began work on his Strata Series shortly after relocating to Wyoming, and, while non-objective in nature, the paintings convey a sense of the wide-open landscape of the American west.
Johnson currently lives and works in Laramie, Wyoming.
Johnson’s recent work – THE ATOMIC PAINTINGS – is inspired by the behavior of atoms and molecules, which cluster together to form something larger than themselves, and later break apart to become part of something new, then break apart again, and so on. The basic principles that dictate their behavior create endless drama and apply universally to entities both large and small.
“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.”
— Democritus
It was in the 8th century BCE that the Indian scientist and philosopher Aruni proposed that “particles too small to be seen mass together into the substances and objects of experience.” His theory may well have inspired the ancient Greek philosophers commonly regarded as the founders of Atomism—Leucippus and Democritus. Democritus theorized that everything is composed of many tiny particles (atoms) that are too small to see, and which are in constant motion. The objects that humans perceive through their senses are merely random packings and scatterings of these atoms within the void.
In abstract painting, we trade the depiction or description of something specific for the chance to wrestle with the underlying truths that govern the behavior of entities at the most basic level, whether inanimate objects, celestial bodies, human beings, or “particles too small to be seen.”
These are the universal forces of attraction and repulsion, harmony and discord, gravity and levity, belonging and isolation…the list goes on. When working with such fundamental concepts, it seems fitting to use the most basic building blocks. Atoms in the void—the subject of a picture doesn’t get any simpler than that. Or maybe these are scenes from the other end of the scale spectrum—stars and planets in space. But it doesn’t matter. The same rules apply.
While the process of making these paintings is not random, it is improvisational. So “atoms” that belong to a given cluster in the early stages might, in the end, be part of a different configuration. And since the pictures are built by means of layering, elements that are at one time central characters often become members of the supporting cast, yielding their prominence to others that come later in the process.
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