James F Johnston’s latest solo show ‘The Human Menagerie’ at Fitzrovia Gallery in London marked my June 2023. A structure of paintings, expressionist and symbolist as the same time, this time in the collaboration with wooden sculptures made with renowned sculptor Corin Johnson that touch accidental poetic truth, for all burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation. The paintings non-realistic, with a lot of poetic licence. It omits some details, a little exaggerated, with the emotional value, for memory seated predominantly in the heart. This is The Human Manageria art exhibition of English painter and musician, living in London. My favourite exhibition for June 2023. In the exhibition room, rather dim and poetic with dramatic convention, convenient to his purpose.
Like there are metamorphosis that features here, included intricate illustrations of animals, a life cycles next to some other associations. This approach was innovative as beforehand animals depicted without any sort of context. The image we see here is an example of mastery of drawing animals as it meticulously portrayed in somewhat the different stages. Depicting animals in art – animals retained both metaphorical and are descriptive elements while also being regarded as equally essential. Some animal paintings by famous artists were created without the artist, with having seen the animals as art motives, and their appearance, produced purely from the descriptions of maybe not just by artist him self but travelers from other time. Mind you Johnston’s music album is called We Travel Time, which may be connected with motives that he paints, above all, our own selves and our very future. He makes the dialogue between the material and immaterial, the center and the periphery, the past and the future.
Hybrid creatures, animals painted speak the languages that compose the city’s pulse, revealing a means of emancipation for those voices that cannot be heard and materializing English tradition of painting nature and animals. Full-bloomed forests inside of animals that have become extinct but here restored to life, born out of dreams, inviting te spectators to lose among the forces of nature that remain primeval, potent, and indissoluble.
The painting we see here is regarded as the prototype of that subject matter. The central element of the composition is a triumphant horse or a bird whose enlarged scale has been interpreted by some as a representation of the conquests of the new world. In the early 17th century, the painters in Europe used it as a means to represent the desired political and social order.
It is the increasingly slippery boundary between our humanity and our technology. This is a thought-provoking artwork with an inspiring program that brings together a unique group of high profile speakers and leaders from the fields of art, to explore human behavior through a multidisciplinary focus.
Humans in general, are a species between worlds. We’re on a mass-migration from the natural world to the digital world, replacing our natural spaces while expanding digital ones. Smartphones, designed to be tools, have become our reality, and with every swipe, our humanity is being exported, distorted, in order to foster mindfulness so that our devices serve as our tools and not the other way around. The exhibition is an invitation to contemplate our relationship to humans and the surrounding world while inspiring the introspection needed to prevent the loss of our humanity.
James F.Johnston as a musician collaborated with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, Mick Harvey, Gallon Drunk etc…all indie musical exceptional artists.
“Paintings full of mythic power.” – Nick Cave
We are asking James about his favourite painters: “For contemporary painters, I really like Michael Armitage, a Kenyan painter, and also Mohammed Sami, who’s work absolutely knocks me out. I’ve also been looking at Kiki Smith a lot recently, and also Marianne von Werefkin, a truly wonderful expressionist painter.”
More to it check this wonderful video of James F.J ohnston, where he clears out a bit his influences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLSbPgxq1y0