On view in the Main Gallery from 5 May – 11 June 2023

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The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum is pleased to present When to Stop: New Paintings by Eric A. Johnson.
   • An exclusive Member Preview will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Friday 5 May 2023.
   • A Public Opening will be held from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday 7 May 2023 with a 2 p.m. gallery talk.

Eric A. Johnson, "Study #7 (Green and Blue)", acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 inches

ARTIST STATEMENT

The bulk of the work in this exhibition was created over the early winter months of this year, but in my eyes, they are the culmination of years of experimentation with color and acrylic paint. I’ve been teaching a “Painting I” class for years, and I started doing some experiments with dripping paints while teaching them on a small scale. Once I had more space and larger canvases these experiments have grown more frequent outside the classroom.

The imagery has changed over the years from different areas of solid colors overlayed with dripped colors to the slight landscapes included in this exhibition. Although the work is very different from my printmaking, I do see some connection to both my more experimental reduction relief prints and some screen prints. Strong historical influences on my work continue to be late 19th century artists, such as Georges Seurat, Vincent Van Gogh, and Claude Monet.

The title of the exhibition is referring to my biggest struggle when I paint, and something that I am forced to do when I am printmaking. With painting, I tend to keep working and then overworking images until frustration sets in, but with time and practice I have gotten better at recognizing “when to stop”. I am honored to be exhibiting my third solo exhibition of work at The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum.

​—Eric A. Johnson, 1 May 2023

The youngest of six children, Eric A. Johnson was raised on a farm near Embden, ND. Johnson’s father, Alton M. Johnson, was a cattle and grain farmer. His mother Edel, who had immigrated to the United States from Norway at age 16, worked for many years in a nursing home in Enderlin, ND. The family raised cattle, sheep, goats, one milk cow, and a large array of pet animals including horses, dogs, and cats. The farm was an active place year round and each of the children had an active part in doing the farm work. Bailing hay in the summer and straw in the fall were particularly busy times, and Alton would bail only square bails that weren’t too heavy for the children to handle. In 1990, Mr. Johnson became ill and passed away the following year in August 1991.

Having little interest in taking on the family’s small cattle operation, Eric moved to Fargo and enrolled at North Dakota State University. After several years of study, Johnson decided to focus on sculpture but ultimately found that printmaking was his true passion. He especially took to the reduction relief print technique, a process using one block to create a multicolored print instead of a separate block for each color. The printing matrix is “reduced” down by carving away where the artist wants the last color to stay. Johnson used this technique to complete a series of sixteen reduction relief prints in his last semester at NDSU. The imagery focused, among other things, on his feelings about his father’s death. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Visual Art from NDSU with a minor in Art History from Minnesota State University Moorhead in 1997.

In 1998, he began his studies at the University of North Dakota’s Master of Fine Arts program in Grand Forks, ND. During his time at UND he began his ongoing series of cityscapes, inspired by recollections of his first visits to Chicago and New York City. He longed to escape to those places, which seemed to be worlds that were both exciting and filled with opportunities for young artists, contrasted to what at the time was a pretty bleak reality for most young people staying in North Dakota, especially for artists. Johnson persevered with his studies and despite some turmoil in his personal life, by the time Johnson completed the program in 2001, it was clear that he had found his forte with printmaking.

From 1999 to 2018 Johnson served various positions at NDSU, teaching in both the Visual Arts Department and Interior Design program. In the Visual Arts Department’s P.E.A.R.S (Printmaking Education And Research Studio) program, under the direction of his former professor and mentor Kent Kapplinger, he served as Master Printer for editions by artists Ken Dalgarno, Star Wallowing Bull, Carrie Lee Kinslow, and Dennis Krull. Johnson also worked intensively on his own practice, creating a large body of new work using the reduction relief process, as well as other printmaking techniques including screen-print, intaglio, monotype, and lithography.

It was during this time that people began to take notice of Johnson’s work, eventually being recognized for his daring use of color and emotionally expressive line work. An exhibition of 58 of Johnson’s prints traveled through North Dakota and Montana in 2010-2012 through a North Dakota Art Galleries Association exhibit. In 2016, he helped organize “PRINTOBER”, a celebration of printmaking at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND.

In 2017, a solo exhibition of recent work titled “The Nature of Things” was held at The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum in Moorhead, MN. Eric purchased his own etching press, a Griffin Press Co. “Series IV”, in 2018 and became the first resident artist specializing in printmaking at West Acres Shopping Center in Fargo, ND. Johnson shared his passion for art and printmaking at the mall from June to October 2018. In January 2019, he opened “Big Oak Press”, his printmaking studio, at his home in Hillsboro, ND. He presented a new body of reduction relief prints titled “Cut Away” in his second solo exhibition at The Rourke in 2021.

Eric A. Johnson, "Lost Edge", acrylic on canvas, 41 x 25 inches

Eric A. Johnson, "Chromatic Chaos #2", acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 inches