For 20 years now, California artist Mitchell Johnson has been traveling to the East Coast to paint the idyllic island of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. (He’s been traveling abroad to Europe for far longer than that.) There have been two particularly important events in Johnson’s art career: his trips to France from 1989 to 1991, and his painting expedition to Cape Cod in 2005, which became an annual staple in the artist’s life.
North Truro (GM), 2017, oil on canvas, 30 x 60 in.
“The first time I painted at Truro on the Cape, I had just seen the 2005 Giorgio Morandi/Josef Albers exhibition in Bologna, Italy, and my work was changing from being somewhat impressionistic to being far more concerned with distinct areas of flat color,” Johnson reflects. “Morandi and Albers have long inspired me to make paintings about the mysteries of perception, color and scale. In Italy and France I had started zooming in on architecture in order to more clearly present the interest in color that drives my work. Being in North Truro where small buildings are often seen against the flat colors of sky, sand [and] water was the perfect continuation of what had started in Europe, and ever since 2005, I have made paintings trips to the Cape to continue the breakthroughs in color perception that happened there.”
Corn Hill (Albers), 2025, oil on canvas, 38 x 30 in.
Every September, Johnson teaches a master class in color at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill in Truro, Massachusetts. This year, the non-profit arts center will honor Johnson by presenting a solo exhibition surveying the artist’s two decades of capturing the island of Cape Cod. Mitchell Johnson: Twenty Years in Truro will feature an eclectic collection of landscapes, architecture and other subjects in Johnson’s bold, flat aesthetic.
North Truro (Red Chair), 2022-2025, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in.
“I’m not involved in notions of style for my paintings. Each painting gets started and finished in a new way, and I would say that I go to the studio to do what I don’t know,” he says. “Something that works in one painting may not work in another. I’m never recording what I saw or even what is in front of me; I’m always following the cues of the painting’s own voice and lead. I’m not a representational painter even though there might be [realistic] imagery in my work. I’m never capturing Cape Cod, but my paintings are talking about the experience of looking at it. I would say that painting about how we see is different from painting about how things look. It might look like I’m painting on the outside, but I’m painting on the inside.”
Shore Road Green, 2011, oil on canvas, 13 x 18 in.
Johnson’s paintings have appeared in films like The Holiday and Crazy, Stupid, Love, and he’s appeared on television programs in France, Italy and Monaco. The upcoming exhibition is set for September 3 to 14, with an opening reception on Thursday, September 4, from 4 to 6 p.m. —
Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill 10 Meetinghouse Road • Truro, MA 02666 • (508) 349-7511 • www.castlehill.org
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