Vigo Gallery presents Therapy Apple, an exhibition of new paintings by London-based artist Johnny Abrahams (b. 1979, Tacoma, WA), comprised of large-scale canvas and smaller diptych works, set out in bold new colours.
The symbols within Abrahams’ practice exist under a certain formalism, the different planes conveying near-musical patterns, oscillating between comfort and dissonance to form melodic variants. The forms within the compositions and the variations between individual paintings are experienced in the way microtones are experienced by a musician using a twelve-tone scale. The shapes seem familiar yet slightly askew, creating tension and drama through the disruption of self-imposed structures. Thinking through this rhythm and phasing, the artist continues his exploration of balance without symmetry.
In these recent works, Abrahams places increased emphasis on the poetics of colour. He sculpts ridged, dual curvatures, distinctive of his practice, with novel chromatic combinations. These slow, still, totemic, almost- calligraphic forms oscillate between their modernist simplicity and a subtle investigation into the effect of light on perception. The paint is applied with a homemade brush, causing corrugated concentrations to develop, effecting the interplay between light and composition.
These are presented next to, and form a bridge between, a new series of oil stick on hessian diptychs that playfully configure disjointed pattern formations. This play of chance reflects the artist's ongoing interest in the evolutionary meeting of atoms; the contact between paint and canvas exacting a game of destiny.
The title itself pertains to a private series of paintings from the artist. For every exhibition he paints, he creates a small, figurative apple that exists for him alone. His therapy apple.
Johnny Abrahams lives and works in London. He has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally, in the US, Korea, Denmark and Belgium.
Selected solo exhibitions include Dogs Dinner, Jack Hanley Gallery, New York (2023); You and I Are Earth, Vigo Gallery, London (2022); The natural solace of labor, Sunday-s, Copenhagen (2022); After Hyacinth After Anemone, Vigo Gallery, London (2021); Red weakens an hour, Jack Hanley, East Hampton (2021); In the divinely human state of nobodiness, Jack Hanley, New York (2021); A sprint for the idler, Romer Young, San Francisco (2021); I am the tortoise but also the cat and the dog, Vigo Gallery, London, 2018; and Interference, Vigo Gallery, London, 2013.
