b. 1993, Detroit MI.

Bio:

Matthew Ryan Johnson is a multimedia artist and educator living and working in Denton TX exploring themes of existential uncertainty, the fluidity and bias of memory, impermanence and embodiment. His work utilizes interdisciplinary processes that primarily result in drawings, prints, and paintings,

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Johnson received his Master of Fine Arts from the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas in 2021, where he worked closely with artists Binod Shrestha, Liss LaFleur, Matthew Bourbon, Lauren Lake and Elaine Pawlowicz. Matthew received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Art and Design at Eastern Michigan University in 2016 where he worked closely with Michael Reedy, Amy Sacksteder, Dustin London, and Brooks Harris Stevens.

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He currently teaches core drawing, intermediate and advanced painting, and intermediate and advanced figure drawing at the University of North Texas.

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Statement:

2022

 

My current 2d work is composed of interdisciplinary research that mediates the subtle space between perceived memory, my ego’s projection, and the objective. Multimedia collecting and observation supplies images and artifacts used to make phenomenological landscapes, portraits, still lifes, and graphs. I imbue imagery of spaces, objects, figures and actions with the psychic and psychological in an attempt to provide structure and narrative to the banal systems and experiences from everyday life, giving order to the confusing and immediate.

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Erasure, collage and transfer are equally important procedures for materials, marks and images. Multiple subjects, substrates and experiences stack and dissolve, giving power and form to the dynamism and nuance of the webs of connections I illustrate.