Sandee Johnson

CONFLUENCE

Use your imagination. Ground water seeps, meanders, joining rivulets, expanding into streams, rivers, strait and the ocean. All that water, all that life relies on those molecules to converge and meetin a confluence.

SKATING ON COLD WAX

Slathering oil paint mixed with the popular medium of cold wax, can be classified as the messiest work I do it's also one of the most frustrating and satisfying techniques out there. When is it finished? How many layers are enough? What is the artist trying to capture, besides abstract expressionism? What makes an abstraction good versus amateurish? Which tools, color shifting and linear paths hold the viewers interest? These questions have haunted me for a number of years. When my face, hands or studio are smeared with these creations, I threaten to quit...then a composition works...and I'm encapsulated again. Slathering oil paint mixed with the popular medium of cold wax, can be classified as the messiest work I do, It�s also one of the most frustrating and satisfying techniques out there. When is it finished? How many layers are enough? What is the artist trying to capture, besides abstract expressionism? What makes an abstraction good versus amateurish? Which tools, color shifting and linear paths hold the viewers interest? These questions have haunted me for a number of years. When my face, hands or studio are smeared with these creations, I threaten to quit...then a composition works...and I'm encapsulated again.

BREATHING BOTANICALS

Using my drawings, pen & ink, acrylic, collage and other mediums, I layer these botanical creations onto wooden substrates.

STILL DRIVEN TO ABSTRACTION

Using a combination of collage, pen & ink, photography, graphite, hand-made/decorated paper,acrylic mediums or oil and cold wax, these abstractions play with space on a flat surface. Though some are more heavily textured, they all concede that movement and change can be expressed with paint and passion.

SURREALISTIC STRANGERS

Perhaps my favorite go-to series after moving back to the states from Europe, this particular series appeals to my quirky, weird side. Painting models, dressing them in costumes, fabrics and placing them in either simple backdrops, nature or strange surroundings, I create my own theater company of strange souls. Then I photograph them. Rather than use Photoshop or other digital means, I work completely on the surface of the photograph.They may come into your life as strangers but leave as surrealist portraits.

VISUAL POETRY

I began this rapidly expanding series after perusing T.S. Elliot's Little Gidding, the last part of his Four Quartets. Disturbed but intrigued, I kept returning to the evocative words, descriptive allegories and emotional impact of this particular �fire� segment. Using limited collage, acrylics and an abstract, expressionistic style, I tried to capture the wartime angst and evocative language of an era that is timeless.

SEW WHAT: EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Irony leaps from these sewn creations. During high school, I was advised that Home Economics was a necessity for the feminine sex. How I despised sewing or anything domestic! Yet, entering the next phase of creativity, I began stitching hand-dyed and hoarded fabrics onto my prints and other substrates at a retreat with renowned fiber artist Leisa Rich. This evolved into many other mixed media artworks combined with fabrics, recycled clothing, and intriguing yardage. Since I'm particularly intrigued by Japanese kimonos, obis and weavings, these are sometimes part of the inclusions. Numbering in the hundreds, these small jewels capture my soul their composition, textures and juxtaposition of colors make me contented. Each one is a culmination of my life.

ENIGMAS

What captures your interest? Is there another realm of life beyond what we can visually see? Are you tired of passive still life, representative landscape, amateurish abstraction? This series features the unusual...human, animalistic, obscure symbolism, analogies and questions.

IMAGINARIUM: ANIMAL CRACKERS

My weird side morphs into simply surrealism but this includes elements of animas and animalism These include my photography, especially those characters created to represent the various creatures that habitat the earth. Those creatures combine human characteristics, a historical practice explored over art�s thousands of years.

BOTANICA

I am engrossed with nature, its beauty and the sheer enormity of plant life. These monoprints reflect a minuscule portion of botanical creations. My drawings are combined with nature prints, printmaking techniques and other mediums. Other elements are woven into each monoprint surface to replicate seasons of growth and the intricacies that intertwine botanical variety. Step inside and breathe.

OBSIDIAN AND SNOW

Those who know me personally realize that I seldom sit still since my hands and mind function on multiple layers, all simultaneously. One of the results of this habitude is briefly explored in this series?these imaginary botanical drawings are done in pen & ink, without planning or plotting. Though some of the sketches are triggered by actual plant life, others are solely the result of an overactive inspiration. I often add a geometrical or unexpected detail that warrant extra study. I?ve been creating these works on paper for 25 years, continuing their birth wherever I?m traveling or residing. By now, they number in the hundreds, stacked and silent.

SKIN DEEP

For the past several years I've become intrigued with bodypainting and the world that revolves around this art form. For centuries, mankind has utilized body paint for rituals, decoration, theatrical applications and as a celebration of the human form as a palette. I was already doing limited application on friends or models but then I met Scott Fray and Madelyn Greco who created Living Art America. They introduced me to the global family of bodypainters that careen outside reality. These photos were primarily taken at the World Bodypainting Festival in Austria and Living Art America?s events in America. I enhance each one with surface creative elements so that the embellishments accelerate the viewers? concentration on details.

SECRET SHAME

This passionate series revolves around systematic sexual abuse that has evolved in every generation and can happen to females (and the male gender) of any age. Incest, rape, human trafficking, torture and a proliferation of other crimes against babies, adolescents, adults and even the elderly continue to scar our psyche, morality and very existence. Yes, I am the victim of sexual abuse on several levels and layers; these attacks shaped my life like it has for every other innocent victim. Though my particular renditions feature the feminine perspective, they are not alone as the recipients of unwanted attention of the worst kind. I utilize my thoughts and free verse along with my photography, historical ephemera, fiber, handmade papers and miscellaneous elements to compose these representative snapshots of personal horrors. As a raging by-product of contemporary society, these date rapes, gropings, sexual innuendos, workplace harassment and even Presidential statements continue to reawaken that secret shame, echoing and repeating those silent memories. I have no hope that it will ever end, at least during my lifetime. As an artist, I believe we need to politicize this outrage

FALLEN INTO A BIG BUCKET OF PAINT

All are oversized expressive abstract acrylic paintings on canvas. There are also a few other mediums thrown into the mix.

THE WEIGHT OF MEMORIES

In that I use many different techniques, I wanted to find a new way to combine disparate work into cohesive dimensional pieces. Each of these creations represent a pivotal point in my life, a chapter that represents a frisson of knowledge or inspiration that recreate my own personal geography.

VESSELS

The term �vessel�can be all inclusive to include the body, organs, nautical vehicles and a container that is hollow, empty or full of something. I am merely exploring both the decorative and utilitarian reference to bowls, pitchers, urns, vases that command attention in a still life or as the only focal point of a composition. I favor the slab-built or hand turned earthenware that stretches around the globe in every culture.

NATUR MORTE

Balancing the smooth potential of Venetian plaster with its super power of creating texture, I play with abstract still life objects. They don?t argue, squirm or need a bathroom break. While some of the pieces focus only on shapes and vessels, other include lemons, oranges and other juicy food items.

WHEN WRONG IS RIGHT

History accumulates mistakes and humans rarely learn any lessons from it. We are doomed to living from pace to war, atrocity to charity, ignorance to knowledge. This is my sidestep into exploring this realm.

COLOR CODED: DRAWN BY NATURE

For over thirty years I�ve been drawing flowers and plants�primarily imaginative. Sometimes I�ll include unexpected details, geometrical shapes or unusual colorations. These still speak to my fantasy side.

HISTORY: BENEATH IT ALL

Utilizing my own photography, ephemera, handmade paper and various other materials these collages are a culmination of layer after layer. One of my passions includes history�modern or ancient.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE: ASIA

IMPERFECT BIRDS

As I appreciate nature more as I gently rust into those final chapters, birds are becoming familiar symbols in my artwork. This series has that unifying factor of birds or fowl. Since I have an enviable hoarding of ephemera I�ve used or enhanced those images to place these feathered friends into either realistic or abstract backgrounds.

WAXING AND WANING

Encaustic monoprinting on a hotbox can be addictive. I�ve ended up with hundreds of these prints which can hold their own as a piece of artwork or be combined in collage form. All sorts of tools, junk and unexpected sources like dental floss, forks, dish mats, toothbrushes, wooden molds, cardboard and many other items aid the print process. Other writing material like China markers, pencils, special pens or crayons enhance the images.

METAMORPHOSIS

RITES AND PASSAGES

MICROCOSMS

Shakespeare stated it most succinctly: All the world�s stage, And all the men and women merely players�I began this series by doodling and then began to consciously examining all sorts of humans, be they fool or genius. The world spins, tilts and teeters as people grimace, hide, dance, leap, fight, sing and represent the global pulse. These cartoon-like abstract character drawings are created with brush ink pens, Micron pens, watercolor, crayons, colored and graphite pencils of various sizes and surfaces of drawing paper.

BOOK MARKS

I acquired hundreds of antique and vintage books while living all over the world. I either ship the entire book or cut of the covers to save either postage or moving fees. The covers are intriguing on their own with marbled papers, leather, weathered lettering or just aged by many years of wear and tear. I�ve then collaged these book covers with found ephemera, my drawings, photography or whatever seems to connect with magnetism.

COLOR CODED CUBES

Squares or quadrates are a familiar shape favored by artists who want to combine each panel into an interchangeable grid. These are primarily collages of diverse images combined with acrylics to create a dynamic puzzle.