November 28 – December 9, 2007
“Fractures”, Lisa Johnson’s solo exhibition, presents new explorations into metaphorical landscapes. Fractures are a portent of change, a signal of imminent transformation. They remind us of the fragility of what we think of as permanent and hint at possibilities still unknown — everything perpetually in a state of ‘becoming’. Fractures suggest the potential of danger and yet the beauty of renewal. This idea carries over into her new work, Johnson says, as in the process of painting, one must fracture what came before in order for something new to emerge.
Lisa Johnson’s paintings suggest real and imagined spaces; dramatic and emotional landscapes marked with sensual riffs of colour, texture and light. Johnson’s paintings improvise on a sensory and emotional memory of landscape experiences–primarily Mazinaw Lake, Ontario; sojourns in Italy; and the mountainous wilderness of northern B.C. She is interested in the way in which landscapes become internalized; impressions that are grooved into emotional memory, and emerge during the process of painting. In that sense her paintings are as much self-portraits as landscapes — they express a relationship to a place rather than a view of landscape as object.
This land like a mirror turns you inward
And you become a forest in a furtive lake…
–Gwendolyn MacEwen “Dark Pines Under Water
