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...

Destilaciones
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Ximena Garrido Lecca

2014

Destilaciones ( Distillations , 2014) is an installation composed of a group of ceramic pots, presented on the floor and within a steel structure...

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 (Pasta Painting)
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Scott Reeder

2013

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

Mother Pig, Shushi Gallery, San Diego Performance
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Paul McCarthy

1983

McCarthy’s Mother Pig performance at Shushi Gallery in 1983 was the first time he used a set, a practice which came to characterize his later works...

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...

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...

Mickey Mouse
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Paul McCarthy

2010

To make Mickey Mouse (2010), Paul McCarthy altered a found photograph—not of the iconic cartoon, but of a man costumed as Mickey...

Herculine's Profecy
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Juliana Huxtable

2017

Herculine’s Prophecy by Juliana Huxtable features a kneeling demon-figure on what appears to be a screen-print, placed on a wooden table, which has then been photographed and digitally altered to appear like a book cover, with a title and subtitle across the top, and a poem written across the bottom...

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...

Human Quarry
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Leslie Shows

Human Quarry is a large work on paper by Leslie Shows made of a combination of acrylic paint and collage...

Untitled (Miller House, #02)
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Luisa Lambri

2002

Lambri’s careful framing in Untitled (Miller House, #02) redefines our understanding of this iconic mid-century modernist building located in Palm Springs, California...

Untitled (Butterfly)
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Mark Grotjahn

2002

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

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...

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...

Iron Sorrows
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Alexis Smith

1990

Iron Sorrows (1990) brings together what are for Alexis Smith common motifs and materials such as scavenged and repurposed metal, and street signage...

Diego Rivera Mural: Billionaires Club; Ministry of Education, Mexico D.F., Third Gallery
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Tina Modotti

1927

Modotti’s Diego Rivera Mural: Billionaires Club; Ministry of Education, Mexico D...