Born and raised in Britain, Eleanor Johnson’s art is one to instantly capture an audience. Her complex renderings of human form sprawl across the canvas, expressing moments of clarity in an overall tangle of brushstrokes. Johnson’s work interrogates the idea of consciousness, exploring the nature of the mind and the complexities of perception in pressurised states. Through layers of individual brushstrokes which creep out from more detailed forms, Johnson hones in on the capacity of the mind and its ability to feel overwhelmed with whirring thoughts. This carousel of fleeting emotions, ideas, and memories is encapsulated perfectly in her piece Cornucopia, 2026, which explores the complexities of the mind through layered forms which blend into each other at the seams. Moments of clarity are juxtaposed by pockets of abstraction which perfectly capture the nuances of the human mind.
Johnson finds inspiration in the work of the great masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo, where the dramatic use of pentimento, the Italian word for the ‘changing of one’s mind’, is a pillar of her work. This is a technique in which earlier traces of the work become visible through the final layers of the painting, reinforcing the idea of thoughts and memories creeping through the cracks of one’s mind and rendering this movement in paint. In Cornucopia, this is paramount where the composition rests on this technique as a device to exploring the dynamism of one’s mind.
Exploring the movement and sensation of exposed flesh, Johnson nods back to Baroque artist, Rubens, to illustrate the nature of the naked body as one which can be both sensual and abundant, whilst overwhelming at the same time. This goal to render shifting flesh in such a manner challenges the delineated painting of the human form to one which encapsulates the transient nature of the human mind. Johnson is inspired by liminal states such as the period of falling asleep, where vision and clarity slip, skewing the accuracy of one’s perception as all boundaries blend into each other.
Beyond the fascination of the human mind, Johnson’s work draws on influences varying from mythology, to the Carnivalesque and how the composed and ordinary beings slip to something more abstracted and stylised. This opens the cracks to vulnerability and exploring states of closeness, tension, and uncertainty in her work. These deeply human experiences captured in Cornucopia highlight the instinctive and primal aspects of man, and the ephemeral nature of being.
