Emma Johnson – ‘Children of the Revolution‘1 March – 2 April 2011
Emma Johnson‘s compulsion for creativity has lead her from Art college, through a degree in Art History, to running workshops, teaching in secondary schools and working freelance as a practising artist. She paints contemporary portraits that focus on memories, and the general ethos of her generation and culture.
Each one captures a ‘Fauvism meets Facebook’ vibe, with titles that come from songs or lyrics. In the time honoured tradition of art linking to music, her paintings focus on Liverpool’s music scene; times spent freezing at festivals, dingy underground bars, and rattling around in a delapidated tour bus.
Emma states; “People are like songs – the good ones stick in your head”. So each painting has a story, a name, a person that used to be. “Call me Irresponsible” – a self portrait from a photograph taken at the Mathew Street Festival 2008, a day that began with buying a house, and culminated in 3 bottles of gin and the ruination of a good pair of shoes. Thus followed a collection of photographs full of anecdotes, and characters who tell their own story as they fall out of her paintbrush.
Emma Johnson