Tim Johnson’s highly individual contributions to the practice of making art and to debates about art in Australia, as well as his sustained engagement with diverse communities of Australian society, have constituted one of the most passionate, provocative and productive contributions to our cultural life by an Australian artist in recent decades.
At the very end of the 1960s, after painting in some form or another since the age of six, Tim Johnson abandoned painting to focus on conceptual art. For Johnson, painting was no longer as important to him as it once was and, at this time, he questioned the essence and purpose of art generally. However, his different lines of inquiry were still influenced by his practice as a painter. Years later, Johnson would return to painting with a fresh view for its importance to his practice, as well as a reinvigorated interest in its role in an art world changed dramatically by the influence and popularity of conceptual art in the 1970s.
Text Extract – Queensland Art Gallery
Image: Performance Document (c. 1970). Photographic print, 18.5 x 23.5 cm
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