For Miles Johnston’s show of new work, hosted at Harman Projects, collectors won’t find a “total reinvention” of his conceptual, figurative paintings executed in oil and pencil. Instead, he shares that the pieces are the latest snapshots in the slow development of his work—mirroring his own life experience. 

“I tend to work in a very intuition=driven way,” the artist explains of his process. “I typically don’t sit back and conceptually plan a theme or a subject matter that I want to paint. Instead, I explore through sketching without explicit intention, but always remaining alert for meaningful and emotionally resonant symbolism that emerges.”

Countercurrent, oil on canvas, 16 x 12"

 

Johnston adds that his process is very time consuming and labor intensive, “so the barrier for entry for a pencil work or an oil painting is very high,” he says. “I believe that for something to cross this filter, it has to speak to something important about my own internal life.” 

He also notes that all of his pieces are considered self-portraits in one way or another. “None of them really contain named characters but are usually a male or female stand-in for myself,” he says. “The themes that reoccur are the fundamental existential questions that tend to interest me. I want to make art that can comfort someone else by simply acknowledging the kinds of questions that really trouble people. The aim is to try and make something that captures the pain of impermanence, suffering, loneliness and loss, but that also has the warmth of compassion, love and beauty. My work doesn’t try to give any answers to life’s big questions—that would be absurd. Instead, I think a lot of strength can be found in just confronting the world we live in and making peace with it.”

Momento Mori, pencil on paper, 11 x 9"

 

We see these themes play out in striking works like Countercurrent, in which figures are shown traveling through water, heads barely above the surface, almost all pointed in the same direction. Only one figure in the sea of heads looks back. “For this painting, it was essential to me that they are all clearly the same person,” Johnston explains. “If it were one figure surrounded by crowds of others going in the other direction, I think it becomes a rather predictable image about how individuals sometimes see something that the crowd doesn’t. By it being many versions of herself, the possible interpretations expand for me in a way that I find interesting. I also tried to put a lot into the look on her face. It’s a cliché, but so much can be said with a look.”

Extinguished, pencil on paper, 12 x 9"

 

In another show highlight, Momento Mori, “the key component is the look in the eye of the woman as she pulls down the blindfold,” says Johnston. “The drawing is about that moment of confrontation with reality, the sheer scale of it all, the endless sea of people, just like you and me and who all lived, breathed, loved, dreamed and died. I have been playing with scale in some compositions to show the inherent bias we all carry as the main characters in our own life.”

Nurture, oil on canvas, 31 x 9"

 

Johnston's body of new work will be on view at Harman Projects' New York City location from December 14 through January 4. The show also serves as a launch event for Johnston's book Liminality—the definitive word for the first 10 years of his career as an artist. —

Harman Projects  
54 Ludlow Street • New York, NY 10002 • (212) 477-4759 • www.harmanprojects.com

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