Johnson has been a visiting artist at The American Academy in Rome, Borgo Finocchieto, The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Castle Hill in Truro, MA.

He prevailed not to capture some ideal sense of place, but to see better and to go deeper into painting. Wading through unfamiliar landscapes, often on foot, he worked to understand the ever complex geometry of land and sky. Johnson adopted their reverence for art history and their emphasis on drawing and painting from life as the source of a personal direction.īeginning in the 1990s Johnson embarked on long painting expeditions to Italy, France and New Mexico with rolls of canvas packed in a golf bag like a modern day Corot. In New York, Johnson studied at Parsons School of Design with former students of Hans Hofmann: Jane Freilicher, Leland Bell, Nell Blaine, Paul Resika, Larry Rivers and Robert De Niro, Sr.

Mitchell Johnson moved to California from New York City in 1990 to work for the artist, Sam Francis.

He has always moved seamlessly between abstraction and representation and the art historian Peter Selz described Johnson as an artist who makes “realist paintings that are basically abstract paintings and abstract paintings that are figurative.” Johnson’s work draws on a vastness of experience and a persistent desire to make paintings that explain the world through color and shape.