DOMINIK MERSCH GALLERY presents the third solo exhibition of eminent Sydney based artist Tim Johnson. Often described as ‘floating worlds,’ Tim Johnson’s extraordinarily powerful paintings embrace the spiritual iconography of a range of cultures including those of Aboriginal Australia, the Buddhist East and Native America.

‘Johnson’s paintings are landscapes of desire, images of impossible unity, imagined syntheses of cultural and visual systems that freely draw upon images whose meaning we do not necessarily recognise or understand,‘ wrote Linda Michael in 2001. The dot painting of Papunya, a Tibetan Thanka, Radio Birdman logos - all may find their place in the work of Tim Johnson. But there is nothing cynical about this bower-bird approach. His painting style, which is actually a mixture of styles, is influenced by these sources in both a technical and theoretical way. The paintings are hypothetical landscapes. Johnson frequently collaborates with artists from other spheres and has produced a number of works with Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Karma Phuntsok, Me Li Thi and Brendan Smith.

This year marks a milestone of forty-four years exhibiting for Tim Johnson. His first solo exhibition was in 1970 and he has since featured extensively in Biennales and Documenta IX as well as a major survey exhibition ‘Tim Johnson: Painting Ideas’, in the Art Gallery of NSW, QAGOMA and The Ian Potter Museum, 2009, the Third Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at Queensland Art Gallery and recently the exhibition ‘Australia’ at the Royal Academy of the Arts, London.

-Dominik Mersch Gallery

Image: © Tim Johnson
Courtesy of the artist and Dominik Mersch Gallery