"In The Zone" an interview with Brody Johnson

This interview was conducted over text through the month of November. If you like what you hear and want to check out more of Brod's work, check out their instagram page where they archive their art @brodyjohnso  

We had a couple wonders for our generations great painter, and boy, did Brody have some answers for us. Here is what Brody Johnson has to say... 

"Before I was a painter, I loved to write. Sometimes I’d be going through something that I felt was a big deal, and I’d feel the need to write about it. But when I was finished fleshing out my frustrations on paper, I’d often notice I’d only filled up a page or so. It’d make me feel better in a roundabout way, realizing how stupid it was letting a page’s worth of thoughts ruin my day. I do the same thing with paintings now. Something will happen, I’ll go make art about it if I feel like it, and occasionally I’ll catch myself trying to adjust the theme to make it more theatrical and dramatic, and laugh at myself for being pretentious like that. 

Art is the most honest part about me so I think it makes sense that my painting process has an ability to call me on my bullshit

                                                                                         

 "Like This?"

For the longest time, I didn’t like the idea of religion or spirituality. After a while of considering why though, I found the reason to be based more in a hatred of authority than an actual apprehension for faith. I’ve since explored my relationship with spirituality more, and have landed on a broad concept of “God”, their relationship to me, and my relationship to the universe. That isn’t really what this piece is about though. It’s more about why I felt the need to loop religion in with the other authorities in my youth, like school or my parents. I think there is something to be said about feeling forced into Christianity, or any religion really, and that’s what this piece explores. The guy in Catholic garb is jamming a cross into the other guys head, as a third figure watches over the scene, visibly uncomfortable. I view this third figure as me. This painting is big. About 4 by 5 feet. Much of the detail gets lost when you take a picture, but everything is made up of globby dabs and smacks of paint.

Religion hasn’t exactly been a big part of my life til recently, I just kinda ignored it in my youth so I don’t have much in the way of other religious commentary in my art. But I’ve had a practice forever of taking something I’m worried about, or something I’m going through that I think is a big deal, and exercising it until I either figure it out, or realize I’m being a dummy. 

"Arts and Crafts"

Often when I’m painting I get really “in the zone”. I don’t wanna call it a “flow stage” cuz that seems pretentious, but there definitely is a meditative aspect to my painting process that I hold dear to me. However, now receiving formal training for the first time, I’m finding it’s a detriment to the vibrancy of my paint. Color saturation means a lot to me in my compositions, but so does that meditative feeling that comes with getting “in the zone”. So with this piece, I kinda tried to do both. 

I took something I’d made that was already partially complete, and mixed a large range of colors beforehand to ensure not much mixing would occur on the actual surface. This keeps the pigment nice and pure. Once it was dry, I went in with some fine acrylic markers to add highlights, and some alcohol brush pens to add accents. This piece was a lot less about concept than it was about process and the actual act of creating it, but I’m immensely proud of the result regardless.

I always call a piece finished once I feel like if I add anything more it’d get worse or detract from the original message of the piece. Since that’s such a subjective definition of a piece being finished tho, it’s always subject to change. I just happened to look at that smaller canvas that I was no longer happy with, knew I didn’t have any other blank ones on me, and decided that was the plan lol. Usually it’s more about the act of painting for me than the finished product, so what I’m actually painting on tends to be inconsequential mostly.

Not this time though, I kept some remnant of the original designs I had in the piece before, but a lot of what I did screamed “I have no ideas so I’m gonna scribble and hope for the best” when looking back at it 2 years later. 

The piece was primarily red. When I first made it I must’ve had some sorta conceptual reason for using so much red, since I even lathered the sides of the canvas in it. There was a nice design in the middle painted in what I think was white paint and a lot of gloss medium, so it had this nice shiny, slightly see-through quality. Like I said though, everything outside of that suckedddd. In the process of covering it all up, the nice design in the middle got caught in the crossfire and lost some of its luster, especially when you look at it in a photo

“Messy” is the best word to describe it. I hate when ppl say “dirty” to describe my workspaces or my paint stained clothes, cuz that’s such a negative word. There’s no dirt in my studio, but it’s far from the textbook definition of “clean”

My preferred method of painting is sitting cris-cross applesauce on the ground in front of my canvas. The spot I sit is usually surrounded by - circle of scraps, books, supplies, etc, so if I need a specific brush or I want to collage from a specific book I can just lean over and grab it without having to get up. This makes The Stu insanely cluttered no matter how often I tidy up, but I think it also helps expedite the process you know?

Whenever I’m painting I always want some sorta background noise, idk I think it’s an ADHD thing. I love all kinds of music, but usually when I’m making art I’ll put on something that doesn’t require me paying rlly close attention, so like shit with really deep lyrics or unique production probably wouldn’t be the go-to for a paint sesh. If I’m just in a music-listening mood, I love the album “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” by Injury Reserve. One of the guys in Injury Reserve, RiTchie, is also doing some cool ass stuff. While I’m painting tho, I fw jazz or some silly cloud rap or something. Something that I wouldn’t normally sit down and listen to for the sake of listening to it, but good to keep my brain happy and sufficiently occupied while I do something else. 

I like youtube video essays for a similar reason. 

You don’t really needa watch them , you can kinda just throw them on and listen like a podcast.

"Togetherness"

While I was watching the 2024 election results come in, I was nervously painting faces so my hands and brain had something to do aside from worry. After wallowing in dismay for a day or so following the outcome, I started to see a lot of people online offering a more hopeful outlook on these results, and that hope they were sharing is what this piece is about. We are all still the same people we were on November 4th, and the fellowship we’ve created amongst ourselves in whatever groups we are apart of will exist in perpetuity. I decided to take the faces I’d made in a panic during the election itself, and paste them together on a canvas, adding other paint to make it more cohesive. Even if a lot of these faces seem rightfully uncomfortable, nervous, or frightened, they can rest in the fact that they are all together still, and nothing can take that away from them.

My first three years worth of work was made with crappy CraftSmart and Artist Loft paint. The downside to acrylic paint in general is that it’s non-archival, so the pigments fade after a while, and that process is obviously sped up when you get your paints at the dollar tree. Some of those paintings already look noticeably muted, with a weird layer of acrylic dust over them. I’ve made several other mistakes that’ll result in the deterioration of my pieces over time, mostly because no one ever told me the “right” way to do things. My canvases will warp, my collages will decay, and my paint will fade. Knowing that has taught me to accept that process as part of the art. The paintings “live” and “die” just like I will. One day, all that will remain of some of my works is a grayish wash of color, and there’s 

something kinda beautiful about that.

It’s taught me a lot about impermanence and not getting too attached to material things, or at least to not get attached to one exclusive view of something. "