For Immediate Release
February 24, 2009

San Francisco Artist Elizabeth Johnson Featured in Main Theater Gallery

The exhibition features four large format oil paintings from 2007-08.

The Cañada College Art Department is presenting an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by the San Francisco artist Elizabeth Johnson. The exhibition opens February 17 and will run through March 17 in the Main Theatre Gallery in Building 3.

The exhibition features four large format oil paintings from 2007-08.  These dense, exciting images depict human and rock forms interacting in a dense space where one wonders if the humans are coming from the rocks or vice versa. The paint surface, usually created with the use of the palette knife, becomes part of the physicality of this world.  In her use of color, Johnson creates a structured space, full of light  and visual surprises.

Of her fascination with rock and human forms Johnson writes:

"In the same way that a rock is a thing, the human body is substance, matter, weight, or earth. A person may have a head replaced with a rock, a rock wall can be made of heads, a rock may have the features of a face. These human/rock hybrids interact in a three-dimensional space, staging their dramas. I suggest that rocks can represent human emotions or ideas as they are heavy objects to lift, crawl out from under or work around.”

Also in this show are twelve works on paper drawn with acrylic inks. They show single figures and rocks often drawn as if they were one body. These are executed from the live model at a group drawing session, and from the rock that Elizabeth brings to that session for this purpose. The simplicity and directness of execution in these are impressive.

For more information, contact Robert Hood, Director of Marketing and Public Relations, at hoodr@smccd.edu or 306-3340