April 2013

The SaxArt Gallery in Saxapahaw, NC, Offers Works by TW Johnson

The SaxArt Gallery in “Historic” Saxapahaw, NC, is hosting the premier exhibit, Sky Dancing and The Unknown Artist, featuring works by TW Johnson, on view from Apr. 3 - 28, 2013. A reception will be held on Apr. 7, from 2-5pm.

The main Gallery will be featuring the transcendent landscapes of TW Johnson as he explores landscapes in three different genres, Improvisational, Representational and Abstract.

Sky Dancing was born from the experience of being in front of the canvas with brush in hand and spontaneously, like an improvising musician, flurries of notes becoming brush strokes in the dance of expression. It’s exhaling emotion, color and form onto the canvas with the feeling of groundlessness below, birds in flight, letting the eddies in the wind take them where they lead.

Representational landscapes are created from imagined places, hidden memories and photographs. They represent not just the setting, but the mood, the mystical sensation of sensing the air or hearing the sounds in the distance.

The Abstract landscapes are created with the power of color, and the power of horizontal and vertical lines. Though the lines are never rigid, straight or strictly parallel, they move and warp and, not unlike life, they are imperfect, challenged and inconsistent. And, like some people, simultaneously dark but vibrant.

Johnson offered the following on his painting: “I have journeyed toward painting all of my life. I have watched sunsets and moon rises, lights and shadows moving across landscapes, and seasons changing scenery. In my heart I painted them all. I always knew they would they would wait for me and they have. But painting, for many years had been the second thing on my list, right after making a living, raising children, and taking care of family until I remembered something I learned from my mother years ago.”

“She was sketching something for me, when I asked her how she learned to draw so well she brought out an old dusty box,” added Johnson. “Inside were some paintings she had done as a younger woman. They were exquisite to me and I wondered why she didn’t have any more. She told me she had stopped painting because she was afraid she was not good enough and that she would never live up to her own expectations, so she didn’t try. She made me promise that I wouldn’t take the same path. She told me never to let life prevent me from expressing myself artistically. I am keeping my promise. Every day that I stand in front of the canvas is a blessing. The smell of the oil paints, the pallet that evolves, the brushes that I choose and the landscapes that come to life... are a celebration”.  

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery at 336/525-2394 or visit (www.saxapahawartists.com).

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