by Karina Kosmala
On January 20, 2019, Robert J. Johnson gave an “Artist Talk” presenting his paintings in the Ferguson Art Gallery of everyday observations (of people or of nature) that he encountered. These everyday observations were painted using oil and acrylic paints. For one art piece, he used computer images. He said, “So you can use contemporary tools, don’t always think that I’m so old that you have to use a brush or the airbrush or things that we used to use back in the day.”
The theme of the paintings that he presented featured restaurants as well as abstract pieces. In his paintings, he tried to capture the atmosphere of the restaurant and the employees in the restaurant, where he and a group of his friends visited a different restaurant for breakfast every Wednesday.
Whereas for the other art pieces that didn’t feature restaurants, he said, “I have an impression in my mind and I start to develop it.”
Robert J. Johnson is a teacher at the Chicago Public Schools, and a Director for the Bureau of Art for CPS. He mentioned that he didn’t ultimately start in the art field when he started college.
Johnson entered Loyola University Chicago studying philosophy; however, when his mother questioned what he was going to do with a bachelor in philosophy, we reconsidered it. He left Loyola University Chicago and stopped at the Art Institute of Chicago. That was the first time he ever visited the Art Institute and after that he mentioned that his “whole life changed.”
He concluded his “Artist Talk” mentioning how to progress as a beginning artist. “I think one of the most important things is skill building that you are required to develop as a beginning artist so you could represent all these ideas that you have in some manner. The skills that I learned was drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, all kinds of things. So that I’m able to represent my ideas with a number of different materials.”
Robert J. Johnson’s work can be viewed in the Ferguson Art Gallery from January 14th-February 23rd, 2019 and are available for purchase as well.
