About

I am interested in the in the estranging as well as the familiar effects of painting the human body. Hewing close to the naturalness of the human form allows access to its beauty as well as its difficulty, and by breaking the forms' borders and integrity grants access to the haptic evidence of mobile paint. These two modes exist concurrently, the latter allowing the paint to be paint which provides for lush formal moments, and the other giving access to the embodied pleasure of the human form.

Permitting differing forms of representation in one painting reflects the fragmentary nature of attention and perception, and how these forms of attention can be simultaneously present in one visual experience.

It is my hope that this allows viewers to discover different and richer ways of engaging with experience, including their own inner experience. This approach to representing the human body and the space it inhabits provides interest and intense sensation as well as a mild displacement or strangeness which is integral to the way that change is possible.

There is an inherent narrative aspect in any representation of the human form in space, and it is my intent to depict imagery which is insistent, and at the same time refuses to eliminate any possibility or demand a solitary or even dualistic reading. This reflects the nature of vision and memory, both of which are similarly insistent and unreliable especially as they relate to our own embodied consciousness.

Lee Johnson graduated from New College of Florida. He studied with Betty Lou Totten in Florida, Leo Neufeld in New Mexico, and at the atelier of Charles Cecil in Florence, Italy where he taught for four years. He currently lives in Saxapahaw, NC.

Education

1985-1987 Betty Lou Totten, DFACC, Dunedin, FL

1987-1991 New College, Sarasota, FL

1995-1997 Leo Neufeld, Albuquerque, NM

1997-2000 Charles H. Cecil Studios, Florence, Italy

Grants & Awards

1987 Freida Turner Memorial Grant

1990 Women's Exchange Continuing Education Grant

1998 Camille Claudel Foundation Grant

1999 Camille Claudel Foundation Grant

2000 Camille Claudel Foundation Grant

2005 Central Piedmont Regional Hub Grant

Exhibitions

1986 Ruth Eckerd Hall, National Society of Arts & Letters, St. Petersburg, FL

1991 College Hall, New College, Sarasota, FL: Solo Exhibition

1992 Vohrees Gallery, Sarasota, FL

1993 Mildred Sainer Music & Arts Pavilion, Sarasota, FL

2002 Exploris Museum, Raleigh, NC

2004 Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill, NC: Solo Exhibition

2006 Spartanburg Art Musem, Spartanburg, SC: Mid-Atlantic Group

2007 Visual Arts Center of Richmond, Richmond, VA: Mid-Atlantic Group

2012 EMPAC Arts Center, Enfield, NC: Solo Exhibition

2016 The Figure Revealed, Adam Cave Fine Art, Raleigh NC

2021 The Human Spirit, Casco Bay Artisans, Casco Bay, ME

2022 ArtFields, Lake City, SC