Portals: Interior Worlds and Italian Landscapes

Paintings by Teddy Johnson

 Location: Current Midtown

211 Monticello Ave, Williamsburg VA 21185

(Parking is available at Earth Fare or behind Sal's by Victor. Do not park in residential parking 

 The works in this exhibit follow two main paths, observational paintings and paintings that are the result of an internal investigation. The paintings were painted in two places, my studio in Baltimore County Maryland and in Greve in Chianti Italy, over the last few years.  These two paths developed in the aftermath of the pandemic and along my continuing journey as a parent.

The work consists of doorways, windows, allegorical fever dreams, and far away landscapes. Whether from life or internally developed, they are all part of a process of looking.  Some paintings involve meditating on what is means to be a father, or to have been a child. Some involve looking at the inside of an idea or dream, as the world, and I, and loved one's change. These portals are allegories striving to describe the gaps between what I would like to articulate and what I can’t.  The largest number of paintings derived from a looking that involves standing all day in one spot to better understand the way the elements converge in a particular place, or the way turning one’s head unveils a new world.  Many of these paintings involved standing in a foreign landscape and noticing the differences between it and my own. The bulk of the observational paintings were painted on site in 3 separate trips to Italy over the last 3 years.