Michael Johnson
Taylor Square series
gouache with oilstick on paper
with numbers ‘R1966/23353’ on Australian Galleries label (on the reverse)
94.5 x 59 cm (image); 118.5 x 82.5 cm (frame)
Price on Application
Provenance:
Michael Magnus, Sydney
Australian Galleries, Sydney
Acquired from the above circa 1997
"Known as the consummate colourist, little has been said about the formal underpinnings of his abstraction. Yet when Johnson speaks about painting and drawing his ideas owe as much to architecture and mathematics as they do to animism and primal myths: “There is no composition without a diagonal and the movement of the body describes the dynamics of painting, the invisible tension of every image from Leonardo to Mondrian relies on a diagonal. The four corners of a square or rectangle reign in the visual tension, like a bow being drawn back before release“
The metaphor of the arrow suits the work well as so many of his compositions demand the eye to dive and return across contrasting zones of colour. His use of geometry is energised, and sometimes it feels unpredictable, like the darting swoop of a bird or a flying fish breaking the waterline. The tension between the workings of the natural world and the highly composed mathematical structure is Johnson’s plumb line. The large works on paper of the late 70s are harnessed by “hard” forms, the right angles of monuments and minimal scaffolding, yet their touch is sensuous and their palette resembles “soft” tactility: the patina of rust, the stain of a tide-line or the ephemeral sensuality of a cloud." (Anna Johnson, Michael Johnson - Diagonal Light Works from 1980-1986, Annette Larkin Fine Art, Sydney, 2014, p.16)
