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| CHRISTY JOHNSON |
Notes on an Indulgence
“Johnson enlarged the digital prints from scanned images of found photographs and exhibits these, stacked in horizontal registers – a monster storyboard;
previsualisation without a connective infrastructure, only the performers’ share meta-concentration (the hidden internalized formation of a belief system) on the
separation of blood from flesh that symbolises the sacrifice of the man-god. And, if there is no inward contemplation on the matter at hand, the direction of the child-
bride’s gaze is oriented externally towards the surveillant authorities, the photographer and/or God. Thus the gallery space is activated variously by icy stares, knowing
looks, fearsome glares, shock and awe. Some of the giant adolescents appear dwarfed by the event while others command the space, moving forward into the gallery,
staking out an identity apart from authority and ritual. These confident subjects, monumentalised, are triumphant in their newly attained status as emergent sexual
beings. However, many shrink from exposure, sinking back into the wall, willing and ready to hide behind the staged drapery, false scenery of a gothic church, or the
spindly legs of a Victorian table. The exhibition reveals the fact that the childhood ritual is a tainted and knotty observance. Still, these images are starkly beautiful,
and one cannot help but to fall in love with some of the young girls who appear haunted, noble, pure or immeasurably
happy.”
Catherine Clinger, “Notes on an Indulgence” (in Artist’s Pages: Christy Johnson) Vertigo Magazine, 3 (July 2007): 28-9.
http://www.vertigomagazine.co.uk/
“Johnson enlarged the digital prints from scanned images of found photographs and exhibits these, stacked in horizontal registers – a monster storyboard;
previsualisation without a connective infrastructure, only the performers’ share meta-concentration (the hidden internalized formation of a belief system) on the
separation of blood from flesh that symbolises the sacrifice of the man-god. And, if there is no inward contemplation on the matter at hand, the direction of the child-
bride’s gaze is oriented externally towards the surveillant authorities, the photographer and/or God. Thus the gallery space is activated variously by icy stares, knowing
looks, fearsome glares, shock and awe. Some of the giant adolescents appear dwarfed by the event while others command the space, moving forward into the gallery,
staking out an identity apart from authority and ritual. These confident subjects, monumentalised, are triumphant in their newly attained status as emergent sexual
beings. However, many shrink from exposure, sinking back into the wall, willing and ready to hide behind the staged drapery, false scenery of a gothic church, or the
spindly legs of a Victorian table. The exhibition reveals the fact that the childhood ritual is a tainted and knotty observance. Still, these images are starkly beautiful,
and one cannot help but to fall in love with some of the young girls who appear haunted, noble, pure or immeasurably
happy.”
Catherine Clinger, “Notes on an Indulgence” (in Artist’s Pages: Christy Johnson) Vertigo Magazine, 3 (July 2007): 28-9.
http://www.vertigomagazine.co.uk/
