Lisa Johnson

This past year, Lisa Johnson returned to Pouch Cove, Newfoundland for her third month-long residency, this time in mid-winter. Unlike her previous spring and fall stays, the stark conditions of winter offered a new source of inspiration and challenge. Full Circle begins with landscape paintings created during this residency. Upon returning to her Ontario studio, she continued to develop work drawn from this experience, as well as from earlier visits to Newfoundland and other cherished Canadian landscapes.Winter in Pouch Cove—snow, ice, and wild seas crashing against dark, sculptural rock—prompted a more gestural, minimalist response to the land. These oil paintings, evocative of large charcoal drawings, capture the drama and movement of this northern coastline. Other works in the exhibition extend this exploration, using the language of paint to interpret landscape more abstractly. Johnson’s practice is rooted in improvisation and memory. Her paintings layer atmospheric grounds and gestural marks to evoke a sense of place that is both geographic and emotional. Through this process, she creates lyrical landscapes that speak to the relationship between artist and land. Whether in the Shield country of Northern Ontario or along Newfoundland’s rugged coast, Johnson is drawn to nature at its most raw and elemental. For Lisa, painting is an ongoing attempt to express her experience of the transcendent power of nature. It is this drive that brings her full circle, time and again.