EMMA STONE-JOHNSON: FLEXED SKY, GLITTERED EARTH

The buoyant canvases of British painter Emma Stone-Johnson feature surprising, lyrical gestures in vivid hues. Her forms erupt and recede, recalling at once sunspots, confetti, protozoa, and Monet’s water lilies. A talented colorist, Stone-Johnson arrives at complex arrangements of earthen, pastel, neon, and jewel tones, testing the perceptual impact of unlikely combinations. She works in raw pigment, ink, oil, and acrylic, creating admixtures of color that are by turns diffuse and saturated. On the canvas, she abuts starkly defined, opaque brushstrokes with washy passages, achieving uncanny surface and depth effects. The result might evoke looking into the reaches of an aquarium or examining a many-layered image rendered in Photoshop. Although she paints using traditional methods, her ethereal surfaces often mimic the smooth, graphic quality of airbrushing. Stone-Johnson works in large-scale on the floor, slowly building up marks and stains. Her process is accretive, with each gesture and color suggesting the next. Stone-Johnson studied textile design at the Chelsea College of Art before pursuing a degree in painting at the Royal College of Art, and her attention to the ways in which each subsequent mark impacts the integrity of the entire composition reflects, perhaps, the integrated nature of constructing textiles. Stone-Johnson’s influences are far-flung, ranging from the poetry of Maggie Nelson and Anne Carson to the skies of the Scottish Highlands, on to her childhood cat and birthday cakes. Of her luminous paintings, she explains, “A canvas is like a flickering screen, it’s a huge recording device, it’s a love letter, it’s a vessel, it’s morse coding to other worlds.”