WHAT'S
HAPPENING! |
Grant
Lincoln Johnston currently resides in New Haven, Connecticut.
If you would like to receive e-mail invitations to upcoming exhibitions,
please write to: glj@artsiniowa.com
Include the words "Mailing List" in the subject line of
your e-mail.
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Three Tier
Chocolate Cake
oil on panel
57 x 35 |
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Chocolate Cake with
Mocha Buttercream
oil on panel
28 x 47
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White Cake with Green Buttercream
oil on panel
59 x 36
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DETAIL (White Cake..)
oil on panel
23 x 18
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Strawberry Cake with Pink Buttercream
oil on panel
30 x 47
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DETAIL (Strawberry Cake..)
oil on panel
10 x 8
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Red Velvet
Cake with Floral Buttercream Motif III
oil on panel
47 x 28
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DETAIL
(Red Velvet Cake..)
oil on panel
7 x 6
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Three Tier
Chocolate Cake III
oil on panel
47 x 28
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Artist’s Statement
Cake
In my still lifes, each colorfully frosted cake
is accompanied by reproductions of paintings by modern masters and presented
to the viewer in the manner of some half-nude girl from one of Boucher’s
rococo confections: surrounded by voluptuous folds of richly patterned
cloth and tipped forward into the viewer’s space, conveying an overabundance
of decadent pleasure – a sweet surfeit.
The cake serves as a metaphor for painting itself:
lush colors and buttery frosting allude to the properties of wet oil paints
fresh from the tube.
The relationship of the imagined viewer to the seductive
cake mirrors the viewer’s actual relationship to the painting itself: both
the painting and the cake exist only to be consumed.
This series grapples with the deconstruction of
the artist as a heroic figure; it explores a culture of ambivalence that
may at times relegate expressive fervor and artistic virtuosity to the
hedonistic realm of guilty pleasures.
Vita
Education
| 1998 |
M.F.A., Painting, University of Iowa |
| 1994 |
B.F.A., Painting, Western Michigan University |
| 1990 |
Bachelor of Arts, Kalamazoo College |
Juried Exhibitions
| 2005 |
Radius: Emerging Artists from Connecticut and Southeastern New
York. 12 artists selected. Juried by the curatorial staff of
the Aldrich Museum and the director of the Ridgefield Artists’
Guild, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in conjunction
with the Ridgefield Artists’ Guild, Ridgefield,
CT. |
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All Consuming. Jurors, Messer, Markonish, Bresnick,
Greene Gallery, Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut. |
| 2004 |
13th Annual Juried Show. Juror, William Bailey, Bowery
Gallery, New York, NY. |
Group Exhibitions
| 2004 |
Stricoff Gallery Summer Exhibition, Stricoff Gallery,
New York, New York. |
| 2001 |
Inside. Percival Galleries,
Des Moines, Iowa. |
| 1998 |
In Color: Spaces, Visions and Conflict. Five Iowa artists,
Summit Street Gallery, Iowa City, Iowa. |
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Winter Solstice Fine Art Exhibition. Summit Street
Gallery, Iowa City, Iowa. |
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Greetings From Iowa. Fassbender Gallery Annex,
Chicago, Illinois. |
One Person Exhibitions
| 2005 |
Appetite and Indulgence: Paintings by Grant Lincoln Johnston.
John Slade Ely House (Center for Contemporary Art),
New Haven, Connecticut. |
| 2004 |
Cake: New Paintings by Grant Lincoln Johnston.
Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, Arkansas. |
| 2002 |
Grant Johnston: Cake Paintings. ArtHouse,
Des Moines, Iowa. |
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Paintings by Grant Lincoln Johnston. Farnham Gallery,
Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa. |
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Cakes and Flowers: Paintings by Grant Lincoln Johnston.
Joan Kuyper Farver Art Gallery in the Pella
Community Center, Pella, Iowa. |
| 1998 |
Grant Johnston: Recent Paintings. Eve Drewlowe
Gallery, University of Iowa, Iowa City,
Iowa. |
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