The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art presents two concurrent solo exhibitions: “White Days Unswallowed” by Bob Ray and “From the Ground Up”  by Steve Johnson. During the opening reception on August 26th, Bob Ray and collaborator Kevin Hardy debuted an original performance entitled “White Days Unswallowed”.

Throughout the exhibition, guided group tours will be offered through the Halsey Institute’s Looking to See program. All events are free with the public encouraged to attend.

Steve Johnson was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona and moved to San Francisco in 1996. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in printmaking and painting in 2003 and received an M.F.A. in painting and drawing from Arizona State University in 2008. Johnson was invited as a Master Printmaker artist in residence at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in NYC in 2010 where he completed a suite of lithographs. The published prints have since been shown in art fairs and exhibitions both nationally and internationally: Editions/Artists’ Book Fair and New NY Print Publishers, NYC; Impressions Orlando Print Fair, FL; and Frans Masereel Centrum, Belgium. This year, Johnson has had a solo exhibition at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco, CA and at Blackburn 20/20 in New York City. Steve Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Drawing at the College of Charleston.

Johnson states, “One of my objectives as an artist is to bridge conflicting views by revealing shared concerns and common ground. The basic desire to find and maintain security, whether in a home, job, or relationship, in a forever shifting landscape, can create more losers than winners. Using a cast of chickadees, rats, and hummingbirds, my current work navigates the gray areas and middle grounds inhabited by animals with competing interests.”

For the exhibition at the Halsey Institute, Johnson merges drawing with painting as he layers a variety of dry and wet mediums on wood panels. The warm tones and textures of the wood panels serve as a background for the small animals rendered with a cool palette of colored pencils and watercolors. In addition to showing a sampling of recent prints and drawings, Johnson will be creating a large, site-specific drawing installation as part of the exhibition.

Learn more about Steve Johnson: http://art.cofc.edu/faculty/johnson-steve.php