Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill presents a solo exhibition of paintings by San Francisco Bay Area artist Mitchell Johnson, September 8–20. This is Johnson’s sixth solo exhibition at Castle Hill, where he teaches a master color class every September.
Castle Hill is pleased to present an exhibition of Mitchell Johnson’s recent paintings in its new gallery at 10 Meetinghouse Road in Truro. Johnson has been making annual painting trips to the Outer Cape since 2005, and this exhibition will include new paintings as well as several never-before-exhibited early Truro paintings and Johnson’s first New England painting, “Fall (Tabor Academy)” from 1988, made while he was a graduate student at Parsons School of Design in New York. The show will also include paintings from New York, Europe, and California. A new book, Mitchell Johnson: Twenty-One Years in Truro, will accompany the exhibition.
Johnson’s annual painting trips to Cape Cod began in May 2005, immediately after he saw the historic Giorgio Morandi/Josef Albers exhibition at Museo Morandi in Bologna, Italy. Johnson arrived on the Cape at a pivotal moment, when his paintings were becoming less brushy, less impressionistic, and more about large areas of distinct color. Truro was the perfect setting for Johnson to explore larger shapes and more distilled compositions, with its ever-present bands of sky, water, and sand. Johnson’s color- and shape-driven paintings rely on familiar, even iconic, motifs to comment on color relativity and color perception.
Although Johnson has continued to travel and paint extensively in California, France, New York, and elsewhere, the work produced in Truro occupies a special place within his broader body of work: Its topography offers Johnson a visual structure capable of supporting his ongoing interest in color relativity. The recurring bands of sky, dune, road, cottage, shadow, and water allow him to simplify forms without abandoning observation.
Public Programs
The Gallery at Truro Center for the Arts is open Monday-Friday, 10-4 and Saturday-Sunday, 12-4.
Artist reception: Thursday, September 10, 4:00–6:00 pm
Artist talk: Friday, September 11, 3:00–3:30 pm
Private Exhibition Preview by appointment: Sunday, September 6 and Monday, September 7
About the Artist
Mitchell Johnson began painting in the late 1970s as a teenager at Staten Island Academy. He received his MFA from Parsons School of Design in 1990, and also studied painting, drawing, and art history at the Washington Studio School and Randolph-Macon College. His paintings are in the permanent collections of 40 museums. He has been a visiting artist at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, Borgo Finocchieto, and the Sol LeWitt House in Praiano, Italy.
Additional information is available at www.mitchelljohnson.com. Follow Johnson on instagram @mitchell_johnson_artist.
