Duncan Johnson: Under Construction
Duncan Johnson: Under Construction presents a series of 22 wall assemblages created by using colorful reclaimed wood gathered from construction sites and landfills. Aspects of sculpture, drawing, and painting converge as Johnson selects, shapes, and combines wood strips, and then meticulously fastens them together with a matrix of fine wire nails. His intricate and colorful compositions delight the eye as they maximize the inherent beauty and quality of the wood in his unique art form.
Johnson developed his signature style when he returned to his native Vermont after two decades working as a photographer, sculptor, and fine art handler in Brooklyn, NY. At the suggestion of a friend, who knew his fascination with old wood, he visited the local dump near his studio in Bellow Falls and discovered an unexpected source material – a 20 foot high pile of discarded wood from demolished antique Vermont homes, barns, and buildings. Old floorboards, siding, cupboards, and shelves became an unlimited source of art material and inspiration.
Through a laborious and time consuming process, Johnson selects individual boards, meticulously prepares, and then crafts them into complex compositions of polychromatic geometric shapes. Over the past few years, his work has evolved from flat painted surfaces into three dimensional constructions with underlying layers of vivid color and a grid of new wood that supports the old. Johnson describes his process as an on-going conversation with the materials as he intuitively, and patiently, transforms the scavenged wood, its richness, and its history, into art.
Johnson received his BFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. His work has been widely exhibited in museums throughout the United States and he is a recipient of the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant (2010), the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award (2009) and the New York Foundation for the Arts Sculpture Fellowship (2001) among others.
