Untitled (Painting of a Man Leaving in Boat)

2010 - Painting (Painting)

Chris Johanson

location: Los Angeles, California
year born: 1968
gender: male
nationality: American
home town: San Jose, California

Chris Johanson’s Untitled (Painting of a Man Leaving in Boat) (2010) pictures a canoe drifting toward an off-kilter horizon line, which demarcates the cobalt sea from the cerulean sky. An orange-haired figure, oar positioned in mid-stroke, looks ahead—whether toward an edge or an infinite expanse, it is impossible to tell. Echoing a trope that recurs in Greek epic poetry, transcendental painting, and current-day reality television, the character is alone with nature. We witness—and likely empathize with—his voyage.


The prolific Chris Johanson produces paintings, zines, installations, and sculptures that are notable for their earnest, almost childlike abstraction. His work delves unabashedly into the emotional, social, and spiritual aspects of human nature, tracking points of commonality and difference using simple shapes and lines as well as an unflagging sense of magnanimous humor.


Colors:



Untitled
© » KADIST

Barry McGee

Barry McGee’s Untitled is a collection of roughly fifty, framed photographs, paintings, and text pieces clustered together in corner...

Untitled (Bird and Eyes)
© » KADIST

Clare Rojas

2008

Rojas’s two pieces in the Kadist Collection— Untitled (four-legged…) and Untitled (Bird’s Eyes) —are representative of her pictorial style which uses bold colorful blocks of paint and female and animal characters...

I Want to be Gentleman
© » KADIST

Lu Chunsheng

2000

Lu has developed an oeuvre that consists of characters in bizarre situations...

Arbol y Pelicao (Tree and Pelican)
© » KADIST

Federico Herrero

2009

Federico Herrero’s energetic paintings reflect his experiences on the streets of his native San José, Costa Rica, and in the surrounding tropical landscape...

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Apartment on Cardboard
© » KADIST

Chris Johanson

2000

Apartment on Cardboard (2000) is an exterior view of an abstracted apartment building...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Barry McGee

Barry McGee’s Untitled is a collection of roughly fifty, framed photographs, paintings, and text pieces clustered together in corner...

Untitled (Bird and Eyes)
© » KADIST

Clare Rojas

2008

Rojas’s two pieces in the Kadist Collection— Untitled (four-legged…) and Untitled (Bird’s Eyes) —are representative of her pictorial style which uses bold colorful blocks of paint and female and animal characters...

Untitled (Butterfly)
© » KADIST

Mark Grotjahn

2002

This particular drawing, like many of Grotjahn’s works, presents a decentered single-point perspective...

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Crypto Investor Jehan Chu on Building a Collection of Contemporary Art and NFTs
© » ARTSY

Crypto Investor Jehan Chu on Building a Collection of Contemporary Art and NFTs - Artsy Advertisement Art Market Crypto Investor Jehan Chu on Building a Collection of Contemporary Art and NFTs Reena Devi Apr 19, 2022 2:17pm Collector Jehan Chu in front of Machine Hallucinations - Space: Metaverse by Refik Anadol in partnership with Sotheby's at Digital Art Fair Asia 2021 in Hong Kong...

No World
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2014

No World is an action-filled video work filmed inside an abandoned museum in the Songzhuang area outside Beijing...

The Best Bay Area Theater We Saw In 2023
© » KQED

The Best Bay Area Theater We Saw In 2023 | KQED Skip to Nav Skip to Main Skip to Footer Arts & Culture The Best Bay Area Theater We Saw In 2023 Nicole Gluckstern and David John Chávez Dec 6 Save Article Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Facebook Share-FB Twitter Share-Twitter Email Share-Email Copy Link Copy Link Sofia Ahmad and Neamah Hussein in ‘Closure’ at Golden Thread’s 2023 ReOrient Festival...

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Silencer #16 & #17
© » KADIST

Will Rogan

2010

MUM , the acronym used to title a series of Rogan’s small interventions on found magazines, stands for “Magic Unity Might,” the name of a vintage trade magic publication...

Serengeti Green
© » KADIST

Phillip Maisel

2015

While his works can function as abstract, they are very much rooted in physicality and the possibilities that are inherent in the materials themselves...

Untitled (Men)
© » KADIST

Matt Lipps

2011

In the series Horizons (2010), Lipps uses appropriation to riff on Modernism’s fascination with abstract form...

There are veins in these lands, I
© » KADIST

Rodney McMillian

2013

In his evocative Landscape Paintings, McMillian uses second-hand bedsheets, sourced from thrift shops, as his starting point...

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Apartment on Cardboard
© » KADIST

Chris Johanson

2000

Apartment on Cardboard (2000) is an exterior view of an abstracted apartment building...

I am Human, Abstract Foil, No Humans IV
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Chris Johanson

2004

Chris Johanson’s paintings, sculptures, and installations break down everyday scenes and commonplace dramas into colorful forms; the darkest sides of humanity are invoked with humor...

Eclipse
© » KADIST

Jordan Kantor

2009

Eclipse is a series of screenprints from Jordan Kantor’s larger vitrine installation that included reworkings of a single image of a small group viewing an eclipse through shielding cut-outs...

Reborn
© » KADIST

Desiree Holman

2010

Reborn, 2010 is a three-channel video by Desiree Holman that questions ideas of motherhood and the maternal instinct...

Lens Flare
© » KADIST

Jordan Kantor

2008

Lens Flare and the series Untitled Basel Lens Flare (6168, 5950, 7497) were part of a solo project by the artist presented at ArtBasel in 2009...

Untitled, (Basel lens flare 5950, 6198, 7497)
© » KADIST

Jordan Kantor

2009

Lens Flare and the series Untitled Basel Lens Flare (6168, 5950, 7497) were part of a solo project by the artist presented at ArtBasel in 2009...

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A Feminist Memory Project in Nepal
© » APERTURE

An expansive archive illustrates the role of women in shaping over a century of the country's political and public life....

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A growing list of artists in Uganda is contributing to a feeling among curators of an exciting moment for art in the East African country...

LAB
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Kori Newkirk

2013

LAB (2013) conjures the body as the trace of a sooty hand appears, spectrally, on a crumpled paper towel...

From the series Las Mariposas Eternas (the Eternal Butterflies)
© » KADIST

Adrian Villar Rojas

2010

The two drawings in the Kadist Collection are part of a larger series entitled Las Mariposas Eternas (The Eternal Butterflies)...