Helen Johnson: Opening

Pilar Corrias presents ‘Opening’, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Helen Johnson. Featuring ten paintings on canvas that were produced while Johnson undertook training as an art therapist, ‘Opening’ can be understood as a form of self-portrait of the Melbourne-based artist. Inspired by Lacanian psychoanalytic theories, the works on display together produce distinct affective registers for intimate explorations of love, loss, subjecthood and belonging.

During her years in therapeutic training, the artist’s painting practice has reoriented toward psychoanalytical conceptions of the human body. The corporeal body remains a focus alongside these developments, both in scale – which is determined by the artist’s physical reach – and in the approach to figuration. In several works, Johnson assembles various body parts into whole figures like a game of exquisite corpse; elsewhere, atomised fragments coalesce into unfamiliar forms.