Mitchell Johnson: Color as Content (2014) - Hardcover

Color, color relationships, pattern and form are the hallmarks of Mitchell Johnson's achievement. Contemplating the growth and movement of his efforts over the years, we experience his intent, instinct and intuition. We become aware of his affinities with Morandi and Albers, and with Bonnard, Vuillard and Fairfield Porter. Johnson has remarked that he tries to "combine Morandi's feeling for composition with Albers' intelligence about color." And he exhibits an inspirational and perhaps emotional relationship with the work of Fairfield Porter. We experience the convergence of representation and abstraction in his newest work. He has moved on from representational and figurative paintings, to pure abstraction, and then too, to a merging of both; an ongoing marriage of architectonic motifs in each. Flat color and simple sharp geometry, yet lyrical and painterly, declare what he is seeing and what the scene demands. His travels in other parts of the world, his visualization of differing topographies, inform many of his paintings. His work affects our equilibrium, which all art ought to do. Joan Ludman, author of Fairfield Porter: A Catalogue Raisonne of His Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels --Joan Ludman