Art and Photography Arril Johnson - Side Salad - Art and Photography
Almost everything in this loose category manages to weave in and out of most of my personal and professional work. Various materials, hybrid techniques, and the same general aesthetic considerations, whether the intention is representational or non-objective ..... all of this can be placed here. Although, like the weevil at the top of this page, it'll probably turn up somewhere else eventually.
I was recording the meandering traces of bubbles from a toy while preparing action analysis material for teaching .... BUT ... are bubbles pretty? ... yes ... do children play? ... yes ... am I a child? ... basically .....
- Unknown toddler in her own world.
- We think of children as children, but they think of themselves as people. They are smaller and less experienced, but they have a point of view, a rich inner life, and curiosity.
- Prime moments like this are precious ...
The roses in the front garden were doing what they do best and so, without clipping this one off, I took my shot, thought about its structural complexity, thought about a variation on the 'pattern' technique that I improvised this year, and tried to create an image that revealed both the beauty of the rose and the feeling of the underlying patterns that link everything we see.
I've noticed the traces of stubbed out cigarettes on the frosted plastic partition behind the driver's cab on some country buses and had photographed the abstracted and rhythmic burn marks before. I also had recently taken a short time exposure of a man crossing the road in front of a bus I was on. The two images combined into 'The Human Trace' which is both literal and slightly haunting, if you think of the burn marks as the traces of people who, unlike the man, are no longer living.
As for the second image ... Cheddar Gorge has its goats ... skies have crows ....
As for the second image ... Cheddar Gorge has its goats ... skies have crows ....
There is something about a waterfall ... the sound, the fresh smell, the power, the sense of being in a special place, and the memory of it. However, I only had time for a day trip to the bottom of my back steps ... so a seed tray full of water was rippled with a plant sprayer, three fist-sized rocks were lined up, the falls were done with salt poured down a black painted bit of aluminum foil, and Photoshop completed the fun ....
... some waterfalls are in the mind .... |
In early 2019 I continued to prepare photographic images and experiments driven by curiosity, the charm of the found, and a desire to play my hunches about what I could pull out of them. A few more involved the blurred/find edges technique that I developed several months ago, which appear lower down on this page, but my inclination to see a photograph as a painting or illustration resulted in another technique exploring difference/inversion and movement. Time exposures, customised glass filters, and other things that occur to me on the growing list of interesting and effective possibilities keep rolling out. Added to this has been the delightful need to generate graphic track images for my new SoundCloud site. https://soundcloud.com/arril-johnson
It's a good feeling ... I haven't lost my ability to play. Several of the newer photographic images appear below.
It's a good feeling ... I haven't lost my ability to play. Several of the newer photographic images appear below.
Following Joan's death in May, 2017, I made a point of getting out of the house and taking my camera to places that for a long time have been out of bounds due to her health.
The image on the left was taken at Clevedon. The man on the slipway, as well as the tortured strata and low clouds, convey a mood which will ease in time, but for now is very familiar. Something positive happened when on another one of these journeys with my camera. I met friendly people at the Spire Hospital in The Glen, an old, overgrown quarry near The Downs in Bristol. Although I had hoped to be given permission to enter it and take pictures ... and was ... it also turned out that they were looking for images to use as wall art in their new oncology unit. Given the nature of my wife's death, the chance to give pleasure to people suffering in the same way was wonderful, and this will happen. Below are a few of these images. |
Exhibitions
Over the years I've exhibited sculptures, photographs and drawings, either in solo or group shows, occasionally for charity and often with my late wife, Joan Wilson. Joan's website is here .... www.joanwilsonimages.com
In January of 2018, we had another group exhibition at Hamilton House in Stokes Croft, Bristol and we were joined for the second time by Ian Young, a friend we've known almost as long as we've lived in the UK. Joan had planned to exhibit, but her death in May of 2017 meant seeing it through without her and dedicating it to her as the last thing I could give.
Many of the paintings that I've uploaded to the personal section of her site were exhibited alongside a retrospective selection of her photographs so that people would have a chance to know her better. The exhibition title was 'Fragments' and came from her notes while exploring a theme for an intended series of work.
The images immediately below are a few that I included in my section of 'Fragments'.
Over the years I've exhibited sculptures, photographs and drawings, either in solo or group shows, occasionally for charity and often with my late wife, Joan Wilson. Joan's website is here .... www.joanwilsonimages.com
In January of 2018, we had another group exhibition at Hamilton House in Stokes Croft, Bristol and we were joined for the second time by Ian Young, a friend we've known almost as long as we've lived in the UK. Joan had planned to exhibit, but her death in May of 2017 meant seeing it through without her and dedicating it to her as the last thing I could give.
Many of the paintings that I've uploaded to the personal section of her site were exhibited alongside a retrospective selection of her photographs so that people would have a chance to know her better. The exhibition title was 'Fragments' and came from her notes while exploring a theme for an intended series of work.
The images immediately below are a few that I included in my section of 'Fragments'.
Below are images that I had included in a group exhibition with Ian Young and my wife, Joan Wilson, in 2016. Two of these, 'Shadow Street' and 'Notcare Crow', incorporated some light verse for a change and a bit of fun.
These fourteen images were on display at the Paper Gallery alongside work by Joan and Ian. The two week exhibition ran from the 11th to the 24th of August, 2016 and was the last exhibition that Joan lived to see. Several of her included works can be found on her website at –
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Below is a sampling of other visual work ....
Cat Alley
Over ten years and several exhibitions ago I put together a photo collage roughly eight feet long and about nine inches high. It was difficult and wildly impractical in terms of scale, concept and execution. It was one of those projects where the balance of curiosity and necessity that often drives me tilted enough to generate a impulsive need to make something.
There was an alley nearby that had so many weathered, patched and interesting doors and surfaces that would eventually be and have been replaced over time. I wanted to preserve the gut-feeling .... the vibe .... of the place. So .... after numerous shots, prints, tests, cuttings, stickings, impasto texturing, and framing .... 'Cat Alley' was done. Not only that .... someone liked it enough to want it. Lovely.
Some times you play your hunches and sometimes they play you ....
Over ten years and several exhibitions ago I put together a photo collage roughly eight feet long and about nine inches high. It was difficult and wildly impractical in terms of scale, concept and execution. It was one of those projects where the balance of curiosity and necessity that often drives me tilted enough to generate a impulsive need to make something.
There was an alley nearby that had so many weathered, patched and interesting doors and surfaces that would eventually be and have been replaced over time. I wanted to preserve the gut-feeling .... the vibe .... of the place. So .... after numerous shots, prints, tests, cuttings, stickings, impasto texturing, and framing .... 'Cat Alley' was done. Not only that .... someone liked it enough to want it. Lovely.
Some times you play your hunches and sometimes they play you ....
Of the more recent images that follow, some are representational or impressionistic, but others are purely abstracted experiments that I've created in Photoshop using a technique that I developed a few months ago ...... play happens ...
Hugger
Well .... I have done decades of animation in many styles and using many techniques, but my favourite subjects have always been as flexible and silly as possible ...
Curiosity and necessity ..... which I once used as a lecture title ..... seems to be a life theme and has resulted in me adding one more page to this site headed 'Research' which contains material that used to be hosted on another site's page. I can't call 'Side Salad' a blog because frequently updating it would take time away from pursuing what it's actually about .....