Arriving Spring

 

Barbara L. Johnson

  1927 - 2021 (biography)

c. 1990  

mixed technique color relief 

23 x 17 1/2" image size 

pencil, lower right; artist's stamped seal in image, lower right 

4 of 7  

pencil titled and editioned, lower left margin 

 

heavy cream wove 

published 

artist 

24688 

$400.00 

A later-career piece, "Arriving Spring" exhibits informed and elegant simplicity, revealing Johnson's mastery of the printmaking medium in relation to Abstract Expressionist aesthetics. She leaves large fields of uncut dove gray, moss green, and black, and draws the viewer's eye through the center of the overlapping plains with brief, staccato shapes. In the middle has been pressed an inked patch of burlap folded over onto itself, appearing like an ephemeral, gauzy curtain. The grays and blacks suggest the end of winter, pulling back to reveal the emergence of spring.