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Stacie Johnson is a Chicago-based painter who currently teaches painting at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois.
Stacie Johnson, Diamond and Club, 2007. acrylic on canvas, 20 inches x 20 inches. courtesy of the artist.My work is personal in that it reflects my personality and draws on my everyday experiences. Interior scenes of my personal space are a reoccurring subject matter. These “interior portraits” are often informed by Feng Shui. I like the idea in Feng Shui that objects and how they are arranged have the power to alter one’s life. I am interested in the similarity between this concept and the formal considerations one makes in a painting. In my newest work, my scope of vision zooms in on sculptural constructions and personal icons I’ve set up in my studio. The results are graphic, trompe l’oeil abstractions. The newer work, especially these iconic paintings, are also informed by Feng Shui, as well as by Astrology, Tarot, and symbols of good luck—both real and fictitious.
In all of my work, I am interested in recording a daily gesture. Whether rearranging an interior space, composing a still life, or constructing a sculpture, I am interested in the gesture that takes place outside of and before the making of the painting. My paintings are observational. They are somewhat traditional in that they serve as “portraits” of these gestures. I have always been romanced by Abstract Expressionism. I am attracted to the idea of throwing a mark up on a canvas and sitting back to let it talk to me. I admit to having a modernist belief in self-expression through gesture. In “documenting” my gestures, I am trying to find formal ways to reveal a kind of material mysticism in which common objects, or arrangements of objects, become animated with a psychic potential.
For example, in the painting Diamond and Club, I have created an abstract icon and charm for my love relationship. My “Birth Card” is an Ace of Diamonds, and my partner’s is a King of Clubs. I used the symbols of a Diamond and a Club to create a love charm. It’s cheesy, but hopeful; it’s synthetic and sincere. For me, painting is a medium that simultaneously allows you to believe in, yet see, the means of the illusion. I like to exaggerate this tension between illusion and flatness. At times I use trompe l’oeil, yet I also like to emphasize the static quality of my paintings by filling in spaces with flat, synthetic color. Symmetry is another means to getting a really flat synthetic space. Also, because it reads as facial and figurative, it can make inanimate imagery come to life, therefore anthropomorphizing the paintings.
Using objects and images as modes of self-expression has always been a starting point for my work. Cuban Santeria altars are a specific influence because of the way an individual chooses and arranges a collection of objects in honor of a spiritual deity. The altars I construct are not just still lives for paintings, they are modes of self-expression. Sometimes my paintings are pictures of these expressive arrangements. Other times, I consider my paintings as charmed objects themselves.
I think my work belongs to a current trend that I have been calling “Pseudo-Modernism.” It’s like Modernism, Pop and New Age combined into one movement. I’m interested in the ways the ancient spiritual practices of yoga and Feng Shui have become absorbed into Western culture, so that yoga becomes exercise, and Feng Shui becomes interior design. Although the popularity of these phenomena seems to hollow them out, I am just as interested in the way that we actually instill belief, identity, and expression into exercise and home decor. These practices must come from commercial culture’s relentless attempts to convince us that transcendence can be achieved through the products we buy and own.
