Mark Johnson's creative interest lies in lifting seemingly unrelated subject matter out of the realm of its existing environment and unifying them to form a new reality in his mixed media monoprints.
Johnson exercised variations of Modernist abstract art and non-objective themes and approach to color pattern, which nurtured his dedicated interest in design and color. His early work from the 1970’s into the 80’s were inspired by the art of Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, Joan Miro and Wassily Kandinsky whose paintings carried a research into the emotional and psychological properties of color, line, and shape to the point where subject matter and even representational elements were entirely eliminated.
Where Wassily Kandinsky began creating art influenced by music devoid of representational subject matter, and Miro was influenced by a method of automatism that released the expressions of the unconscious mind from the control of the conscious mind, Johnson uses a conscious process to compress and merge a variety of layers of abstract art images into a final image.
In the 1980’s Mark Johnson experimented with watercolor dyes to try to push the watercolor process a degree right or left of the norm. During this time he developed his trademark style of kaleidoscopic color abstractions.
Through experimentation into the 2000’s he has developed unique works of digital art where spontaneity and variety in the uses of color, form, texture and spatial relationships are achieved through various tools provided in computer software.
He utilizes programs for the use of brush effects filters and color adjustment in combination with watercolor, acrylic and colored pencil renderings scanned into the computer.
Through these combined methods he forms multiple layers of images, textures and color patterns merged together to form a unit. Each unit becomes a new layer and he repeats the process building more layers to extend the work to an even greater creative level.
Mark Johnson exhibits his abstract art nationally and throughout the region. His recent exhibitions include: San Diego Art Institute Digital Art International VIII, Beverly Arts Center of Chicago Biennial – Midwest Fine Art Exhibition; Upstream People’s Gallery 8th Annual Contemporary Art International. Omaha, NE; Art Exchange Gallery, Las Vegas, NV, ; International Encyclopedia Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Ferrara, Italy; Invitational “Living Artists”, Art Network Gallery, Nevada City, CA; Lazzaro Fine Art, Stoughton. WI.
Mark Johnson was born in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin in 1948 and moved with his family to Madison where he attended Madison West High School; he also lived for a time in Abilene, Texas. He studied art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a BA in Art Education (1973) and the MFA in studio art (1977). For several years, he resided in Sister Bay, Wisconsin where he founded and operated Sauron Designs Studio and Gallery.
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