From collaged and painted discovered supplies merged with parts of images and ceramics, Leroy Johnson (1937-2022) created an eclectic imaginative and prescient of life in his hometown of Philadelphia. Via layered, multi-dimensional portraits of homes, the artist represents loci of household life and neighborhood in conceptual assemblages that additionally confront racism, poverty, and gentrification.
Within the first exhibition of his work in New York Metropolis, Margot Samel presents Leroy Johnson, a group of the artist’s home sculptures made “with a documentarian’s eye but a poet’s gaze,” says a gallery assertion. His items seize a metropolis in transition, peering into its previous to underscore the myriad experiences of its current.
Via his occupations as a social employee, instructor of disabled youth, rehab counselor, and faculty administrator, Johnson “surveyed the pleasures, hardships, and contradictions within the Philadelphia neighborhoods where he spent his life,” Margot Samel says, and he “pierced the fabric of collective human experience more deeply than most.”
Johnson’s summary, mixed-media homes usually function pictures of individuals and gatherings, graffiti and textual content, and swishes of paint or residual imagery from discovered objects. The gallery provides, “As an African American artist who witnessed the civil rights movement and the impact of racist policies on communities he loved, Johnson took particular pleasure in depicting the richness of Black life.”
Leroy Johnson runs from January 10 to February 9 in New York. Study extra and plan your go to on the gallery’s web site.
