JAY MARK JOHNSON: Íslenskir Fossar - Digital Exhibition Catalog Now Available

Over the last decade, Johnson has rigorously pursued the possibilities of timeline photography. His artwork captures the fluid gestures of Tai Chi and dance, the rush of cars, trains and people, and the infinite cycling of beachfront waves. But within his images the rules for representing reality have shifted. Shadows are crisscrossed and the relative speed of an object determines its size. Moving objects appear isolated from their backgrounds and the backgrounds themselves have been decimated. In this manner, the results of Johnson’s process become a metaphor for the process itself.

“The thing about photography is its truthiness.” says critic Shana Nys Dambrot. “...But when it comes to the photographs of Jay Mark Johnson, that presumption is turned on its head. His pictures look nothing like the world as we know it, and they are not really meant to. Yet still, their brain-melting relationship to the truth remains unassailable. The best thing to do is just relax, and let art and science blow your mind.”

Held by prestigious private institutions and public collections throughout the U.S. and Europe, Johnson’s work has been exhibited and collected by the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution, Art Institute of Chicago, Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the Langen Foundation and Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe.