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
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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)
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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 (Sten-Frenke House #04)
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Luisa Lambri

2007

Custom-built for a silent film star in 1934 in Santa Monica, the Sten-Frenke House is an idiosyncratic icon...

Tapitapultas
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Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker

2012

In Tapitapultas (2012), Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker comment on mass consumerism and pollution by way of a game they invented...

The Breaks
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Juan Capistran

2002

The Breaks reflects Capistran’s interests in sampling and fusing different cultural, social, and historical sources...

Never Leave Home Without It
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Aaron Young

2007

The artist describes the work as “very performative video-pieces but they take on a more sculptural feel...

Domes, #1
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Judy Chicago

1969

Domes #1 represents a significant moment in Chicago’s career when her art began to change from a New York-influenced Abstract Expressionist style to one that reflected the pop-inflected art being made in Los Angeles...

Enemy’s Enemy: A Monument To A Monument
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Tuan Andrew Nguyen

2012

This work presents the image of an immolated monk engraved on a baseball bat...

8 Ball Surfboard
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Alexis Smith

1995

In 8 Ball Surfboard (1995),Alexis Smith combines her long-term interests in California culture and conceptual assemblage...

Arbol y Pelicao (Tree and Pelican)
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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...

Golden Bridge
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Lin Yilin

Golden Bridge is part of “Golden Journey”, a series of site-specific performances and installations created during Lin’s residency at Kadist San Francisco...

Untitled (The way in is the way out)
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Alicia McCarthy

2010

A painting reminiscent of a certain “naive primitivism,” Untitled (the way in is the way out) is representative of McCarthy’s work...

Tarantism
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Joachim Koester

2007

Tarantism is the name of disease which appeared in southern Italy, resulting from the bite of a spider called Tarantula...

The Last Post
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Shahzia Sikander

2010

The Last Post was inspired by Sikander’s ongoing interest in the colonial history of the sub-continent and the British opium trade with China...

Execution Changes #22
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Julian Hoeber

2011

Every work in Hoeber’s 2011 series Execution Changes is titled in alphanumeric code...

Radical Hospitality
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Andrea Bowers

2015

Bowers’ Radical Hospitality (2015) is a sculptural contradiction: its red and blue neon letters proclaim the words of the title, signaling openness and generosity, while the barbed wires that encircle the words give another message entirely...

Untitled (Governor of Ohio Judson Harmon), Damaged series
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Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

Ammo Bunker
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Mario Ybarra Jr.

2009

Ammo Bunker (2009) is a multipart installation that includes large-scale wall prints and an architectural model...

Untitled (Pasta Painting)
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Scott Reeder

2013

Reeder’s works often start with language—and his Pasta Paintings are no different...