Tim Johnson: Syncretism
The paintings in "Syncretism" explore various interests and obsessions I've had for years - Buddhism, Symbolist French poets such as Arthur Rimbaud and Gerard De Nerval, blues musicians like Blind Lemon Jefferson and so on. The impact of Papunya paintings and extensive contact with artists there in the 1980's is still an influence, especially on my use of dots which has become one component in an esoteric and eclectic painting style. When I was attending art classes as a child one of the exercises was to paint with dots with Seurat as an inspiration. It never felt wrong. Later when Papunya artists encouraged me to use dots and to learn about their culture I was aware that there were limits and responsibilities that applied to what one could appropriate.
As well as using Buddhist imagery from Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese traditions there is an attempt to fuse this in a syncretic manner with other belief systems where similar ideas, visual imagery and language can be seen to overlap or coincide. From this fusion of influences more "western" aspects emerge during the painting process such as abstraction, chance events and a subjective narrative that is in some ways artificial. This is my own cultural tradition reasserting itself, but seen from a different perspective. I am happy with this outcome because the paintings are in a sense autonomous statements whose external references depend on what the viewer recognises.
I still believe that it's possible to create an anima or a patina in a painting, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. In an age of social media where imagery saturates the culture, often in quite dazzling ways, the artist reflecting change, looking for meaning, innovating, and often sacrificing materialism can help things change for the better.
Recommended for you
The paintings in "Syncretism" explore various interests and obsessions I've had for years - Buddhism, Symbolist French poets such as Arthur Rimbaud and Gerard De Nerval, blues musicians like Blind Lemon Jefferson and so on. The impact of Papunya paintings and extensive contact with artists there in the 1980's is still an influence, especially on my use of dots which has become one component in an esoteric and eclectic painting style. When I was attending art classes as a child one of the exercises was to paint with dots with Seurat as an inspiration. It never felt wrong. Later when Papunya artists encouraged me to use dots and to learn about their culture I was aware that there were limits and responsibilities that applied to what one could appropriate.
As well as using Buddhist imagery from Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese traditions there is an attempt to fuse this in a syncretic manner with other belief systems where similar ideas, visual imagery and language can be seen to overlap or coincide. From this fusion of influences more "western" aspects emerge during the painting process such as abstraction, chance events and a subjective narrative that is in some ways artificial. This is my own cultural tradition reasserting itself, but seen from a different perspective. I am happy with this outcome because the paintings are in a sense autonomous statements whose external references depend on what the viewer recognises.
I still believe that it's possible to create an anima or a patina in a painting, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. In an age of social media where imagery saturates the culture, often in quite dazzling ways, the artist reflecting change, looking for meaning, innovating, and often sacrificing materialism can help things change for the better.
Artists on show
What's on nearby
