Samuel Johnson + Andrew Nordin | SOMETIMES YOU THINK YOU KNOW

SOMETIMES YOU THINK YOU KNOW celebrates the friendship of two local artists who approach their disciplines differently, with a collective theme of, as Johnson describes: “systems of structure and those elements that disrupt them.” Both also share a mutual love of abstraction, texture, color exploration and process of discovery. The show features a selection of new ceramics, oil stick paintings and watercolors by SAMUEL JOHNSON, as well as new paintings and work in various mediums by ANDREW NORDIN.

Johnson reflects on his recent work made during the Covid pandemic: “It is important to find meaningful ways to feel connected, to make artwork that helps us understand that we are in this together. When working, I thought about systems of structure and those elements that disrupt them. I wondered about the nature of disruption and of the endurance of those aspects that provide comfort and stability. These are recurring themes in my work which play out in various ways — the tug and pull of a pattern that seems stable yet irregular, disrupted, sometimes tearing at its own edges; or a murky irregular glaze which reveal layers and underlying textures as much as it conceals. The work in SOMETIMES YOU THINK YOU KNOW was born from this time and offers an engagement of these themes; they are meant to serve as contemplative touchstones and reminder…Andrew Nordin and I are both interested in systems of structure and those elements that undermine or disrupt them…It is as if Nordin’s brightly colored paintings and my brutish monochromes suggest a glimpse of a world full of systems of order built upon a foundation of churning chaos. It is not one thing and then another. It is both, always. It is as if they suggest that we look and not turn away.” —Samuel Johnson

Of his paintings, Nordin remarks: “I am invested in the problematics of painting. The pictorial and material choices, technical application, and various modes of presentation…I work non-representationally with an interest in pictorial invention and investigations of logic in pattern and abstraction…As a painter involved with abstraction, the ideas of cyclicality, recreating, and effort of gesture are things that fuel my train of thought…Paintings can either create internal logics based on process, or be externally informed by sources such as plywood jig shapes, masking tape gestures, television, photos of architectural detritus, found videotape and YouTube screen grabs…” Nordin also speaks of “The sublime feeling when confronted with the nakedness of rural decay, and how it might translate into abstract painting. Since 2020, I have been incorporating HVLP spray guns into my painting process, making exponentially varied initial visual textures and gestures to excavate and explore.”—Andrew Nordin
 

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Image: Andrew Nordin, “Grand Rapids (overlay),” acrylic on canvas, 60” x 90”