Nicholas Johnson - "Let the Outside In" - Mural
Nicholas Johnson
Acrylic and Pencil on Birch Panels
www.nicholasjohnson.ca
For Let the Outside In I wanted to depict the experience of reading - the feeling that the surrounding space is merging with other places. I began the work by making a collage in order to explore ways of combining different spaces in the same composition. Bringing the outside indoors seemed like a good way to depict how other experiences and places can filter in through a book to colour one's experience of the place they're in. Also, by jumping between styles and techniques, a painting can be about many things at once. The space at the centre of the painting is intentionally empty - a kind of abstraction which I think is interesting because of its contrast to the natural forms of the trees. Its emptiness also represents my thinking about the library where the painting would eventually hang, but which didn't exist at the time I made the painting. The figures on the far right are flattened and meant to appear as if they were cut out of paper, revealing the painting's beginning as a collage. I hope you enjoy looking as much as I did painting.
