Artist's Statement

Art is challenging and engaging and an intimate expression of the human condition questioning the relationship with self and the surrounding world through an ongoing stream of creative experiences and visual testaments; these explore the sublime, the unexpected, the often obscure and unnoticed. Art takes us on a journey of personal learning, facilitating an intimate process of communication with self and the world we build around us, generating personal myth and bringing ephemeral moments of profound meaning into being. Art in people's consciousness is all things to all people and is a profound reflection of man's relationship with life and human creativity.

Artists Biography

Andrew Johnson was born (1965) in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, and completed his secondary education in 1981 at Cyfarthfa High School. He returned to full time education in 1987 and studied a Foundation Course in Art and Design at Newport College of Art, South Wales, after which he completed a B.F.A.. (Hons) and M.F.A. at, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, Scotland, where he lived until 1994.

During his college years, his professional art practice was concerned with the socio-political turmoil of the declining mining industry and he spent four years working photographically, alongside the miners of Taff Merthyr Colliery, South Wales, until its closure in 1993. His background of having been brought up in the South Wales Valleys, the same mining communities that played a key role in developing the social and political structures that helped build our country, was a great influence on him. He experienced the infamous, local community spirit and identity that underwent massive social upheaval, influences that were to reshape the life of a generation of people. He worked empathically with the miners and produced a large body of photographic work which was exhibited nationally.

Back in Scotland he co-ordinated a programme of workshops in a Young Offenders Institution, an Alcoholics Rehabilitation Unit, and was commissioned to undertake a further social project that explored an intrinsic sense of estrangement, social belonging and community, in a new architectural model of an elderly folks home (these were projects which continued to flourish long after he finished art college). Empathy and humanity became a major foundation of his photographic practice. At that time, practising the skill of archery was also important to him.

Wales became his home again in the mid 1990's. Photography, fine art painting and collage, regular exhibitions, and, an artist in residence programme, helped further his creative practice. He subsidised this through part-time teaching in Further Education College and photography workshops in the Probation Service.

In 1996 he finished teaching to spend fourteen months travelling Central America (1996 - 1997).

He relished this unique new world of diverse cultural wealth where the history of major civilisations were still a mythical part of daily life. Political tensions, social injustice and the wide spread abuse of human rights was a reality for many people that he met on his travels. He found a world of opposites - great inequalities that politics frequently chose to ignore. The local people strove for political fairness and inclusion with great resilience and authenticity which frequently cost them their lives. Central America's great humanity, social upheavals and culture wealth was an influence that will never leave him. Using a small, unobtrusive camera he recorded a panopoly of everyday experiences which became a large body of photographic work upon his return to Wales in late 1997.

On his return he was commissioned by, Local Government Community Services, to creatively promote a new initiative that was set up to help local people experience outdoor pursuits and orienteering skills, through professional tuition and services. He was given free artistic licence to develop the project, using photography. A Local Government Arts Institute also employed his skills to explore, Youth Culture and Social Identity, through a dynamic series of workshops at different Youth Clubs in the South Wales area. In 1998 he had a long struggle with personal trauma after a near fatal motorcycle accident which side-shifted his creative practice for a number of years and opened a whole new chapter/experience of life.

Moving to Ireland in late 2002, he established himself as a core member of a prominent artist's collective and continued to work with painting, , photography, and multimedia video works. Collaboration was an important part of his practice and he worked with many different artists in Ireland. He set up a successful, Live Art, Music and Multimedia Event that ran seven live art events between 2002 and 2005, to great acclaim, and won funding from Cork 2005, European Capital of Culture.

He now lives in the South Wales where he continues with his creative practice.

Artist's Background and Education

Andrew Johnson graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, in 1992, with a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts- Hons) and an MFA (Master of Fine Arts). He has exhibited in the UK, Ireland, Europe and America, in solo and group shows.