MATTHEW GRAEME JOHNSON
PREVIOUS EXHIBITIONS:
‘WAYS OF SEEING’
16TH SEPTEMBER – 9TH OCTOBER 2021
Matthew Graeme Johnson ‘A wise one told me…’, 2021
Showing exclusively online, ‘Ways Of Seeing’ sees Matthew Graeme Johnson extend on his signature oeuvre, bringing a collection of five new large-scale works to the surface. Photographed on Dharawal country, where Sydney and the Royal National Park meet, the exhibition is centred around the sensorial experience of gazing out to sea. Layered, sweeping depictions of a swell in constant flux craft an evocative narrative, led by compelling self-guided stories that occur when we take time to slow down, watch and listen.
ANNA HARRISON & MATTHEW GRAEME JOHNSON
’STILLNESS IS A FICTION’
14TH OF JANUARY – 30TH OF JANUARY 2021
‘UNSEEN REALITIES’
19TH OF MAY - 6TH OF JUNE 2020
Matthew Graeme Johnson, ‘Found’, 2020.
Matthew Johnson’s photographs do not aim to represent the natural elements being photographed, rather, they are the medium he uses to create them. The temperamental nature of this medium is heightened by natural variables such as the tides, rocks, cloud cover, the depth of the water, and the distance Johnson is from it. His camera also captures his own movements both voluntary and involuntary. Where typically photographers strive to eliminate their movement and presence from the image, Johnson’s work favours the opposite. Instead, the artist represents himself and the natural environment as one; blurring the traditional boundaries between artist and subject.
‘CONTINUUM’
24TH OCTOBER – 16TH NOVEMBER 2019
Through the lens of his hand-held camera, Johnson captures the reflection of the sun and moon on the ocean’s surface, to explore our relationship with nature time and the process of creation; revealing what could otherwise never be seen by the human eye. Where spontaneous blue lines bleed into white, the artist exposes a unique visual poetry, unseen calligraphies that reveals the silent, ever-present verses shared between sun and sea. Never to be repeated, the works are produced as single editions; one of one.
Australian artist Matthew Graeme Johnson, 2020
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:
Matthew Graeme Johnson (b.1985) is an artist from Sydney, Australia. His solo exhibitions include ‘Ways Of Seeing’, Jerico Contemporary, Sydney (2021), ‘Unseen Realities’, Jerico Contemporary, Sydney (2020) and ‘Continuum’ at Jerico Contemporary (2019). His previous group exhibitions include ‘Stillness Is A Fiction’, Jerico Contemporary, Sydney (2021) and ‘Overture’, Jerico Contemporary, Sydney (2016). The artist currently lives and works in Far North New South Wales, Australia.
"My interest as an artist is to create gestural abstract works with an emphasis on the moment and performance of their creation, like those by the Abstract Expressionists. But instead of paint or pencils, my tool is the camera, and my medium – the sun, moon and sea."
– MATTHEW GRAEME JOHNSON
Pictured above: In the studio with Matthew Graeme Johnson
