Ristras II (1994)
Marnie Johnson
Created : 1994
Purchased : 1995
Medium : Painting/Oil
Dimensions: 34 inx48 in
Located: 2nd Floor,Northwest Hallway
Ristras II (1994)
Oil painting on board
Marnie Johnson (b. 1954)
Santa Fe
Capitol Art Selection Committee Purchase
Capitol Art Collection, Capitol Art Foundation
“I seem to be forever fascinated with the window as subject matter. In my studio there are windows in all directions, and so I follow the sun around the room. Often I will work on three different paintings — morning, noon and late afternoon — catching the light at various times throughout the day. My days are spent watching the sunlight move across an object. Colors reflect off one another, creating new colors, some of which exist only for a few minutes. I try to capture the moment as well as the feeling of the season. And in the paintings, usually there are clouds drifting about or maybe a pure blue sky. I rarely paint a landscape outside the window and I suppose it is because of the freedom and the weightlessness that the New Mexico clouds imply. Painting is a visual, and often feeble, attempt to understand yourself and the world around you.
Sometimes life seems chaotic and full of calamities, yet there are those times when the world makes perfect sense, when your existence here on planet-earth has purpose and meaning and for a brief moment you feel utterly relaxed, at peace with yourself, and ready to marvel at the world around you. Those are the hours that painting is about.”
Johnson began art studies as a child with her father, Bob Johnson, a prominent painter and sculptor who also lives in Santa Fe.
Johnson was born in Borger, Texas and as a child her family would escape the windy plains of the Texas panhandle to visit New Mexico as often as possible. After she moved to New Mexico in 1978, her brother and her parents soon followed. Having resided in New Mexico since then, in Taos and now Santa Fe, she says, “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
Johnson studied art at the Santa Barbara Art Institute in Los Angeles with acclaimed Russian painter Sergei Bougart, and at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, before moving to Taos. She has exhibited her work in New Mexico, Colorado, California, Texas and on the East Coast.
It continues to be the goal of the Capitol Art Foundation to build a permanent collection of New Mexican master artworks that reflects New Mexico’s rich and diverse cultural and artistic traditions.
