Devin B. Johnson Gains New Momentum in 'Crossing'
In his “most focused body of work to-date,” the LA-based artist paints the space between memory and becoming.
Summary
- Devin B. Johnson has opened Crossing, his new solo exhibition, at Nicodim Gallery in New York
- The showcase features a new suite of figurative and abastract paintings that elevates recurring themes, like memory, momentum and community identity into new forms
Nicodim in New York has lifted the veil on Crossing, Devin B. Johnson‘s second solo outing with the gallery. Described as “his most focused body of work to-date,” Johnson’s latest suite of paintings traces the fault lines between recurrent themes — entropy, legacy, memory, the collapse of form — into new expressions, drawing a map of where he’s been and all that’s yet to come.
When approaching a canvas, Johnson first lays down figurative anchors drawn from found photographs, keepsakes and other discarded objects of affection, then come textural spells: subjects drift through milky washes, tethered to liminal atmospheres thick in strata of color. In this exchange between recollection and possibility, he creates forms that feel both robust and elusive, echoing the fragility of a memory on the verge of fading.
Opening with “Mirror Rehearsal,” highlights include the wine-hued gravity of “Harmony & Discord”; “Bus Stop” and “Creep,” two abstract offerings; alongside the titular “Crossing,” a fleeting urban vignette where classic cars and birds in-flight suggest an optimism for momentum against a veil of mystery.
With inspirations like Gayatri Spivak’s seminal “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” Romare Bearden’s inventive approach to collage, and Walkscapes by Francesco Careri, the show embodies an “ode to the presence and opacity of markmaking, the history of painting, and Johnson’s lived and inherited experience,” Ben Lee Ritchie Handler writes in the exhibition statement. With this new clarity of craft, the works of Crossing move beyond mere observation, transforming acts of remembering into new modes of sight.
The exhibition is now on view through November 8.
Nicodim Gallery New York
15 Greene St,
New York, NY 10013
