Field RESIDENT Aug 1- Sep 11, 2021
STEVEN ANTHONY JOHNSON II
Steven is a draftsman, writer, and photographer living in Brooklyn, NY. They received their MFA in 2017 from the New York Academy of Art. Utilizing the language of drawing, animation, and contemporary printing processes, their work attempts to make peace between the religious, intellectual, and humanistic ideals in relation to “Otherness”. Their drawings utilize traditional techniques with abstracted senses of temperature and value to achieve a modern sense of realism devoid of a colonialized imagination.
JOHNSON'S PROJECT:
During the six week session with Field Projects, I plan to continue my current body of work “Left on Read '' a multi-format narrative drawing, audio, and photo-documentary. I plan to use the six week session to compose and complete the next 6-8 large format mixed media drawings. The studio space, visiting critics, and community engagement provided by Field Projects will allow me to fast track this process; expanding my ability to scale the work larger and experiment ambitiously with the production process. My current body of work focuses on an a-temporal cross-diasporic thought piece that envisions two things simultaneously. The first is a visual love-letter to my hypothetical offspring attempting to process unloading my inherited trauma before they get here, grappling with my queerness, blackness, and lack of means as a lens. The second is an ongoing photographic and audio-based conversation about what a post-colonized imagination looks like. The intersection of these two ideas are catalyzed and then metabolized through the drawings, writings, and photo-documentary. The end result is an ongoing continuously evolving multiform installation.
Field Residency
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