This is a show about sight, about seeing and about not seeing. I've used the very young as my subjects because of their burgeoning relationships with the outside world. For a toddler the world is a place where if you cannot see, one cannot see you. A fascinating concept for them - illustrated over and over again as the game of peek-a-boo is never tired of by anyone under 4.
This show began as a response to a friend of mine who is slowly losing her sight. She came to a past show of mine that consisted of sock puppets on chalkboards engaged in various states of emotional distress. Ever game, admirably maintaining her sense of humour in the face of this unfortunate occurrence, she followed me around the gallery feeling my hands as I mimicked what was shown on each painting. When she proclaimed that she wanted to purchase one I hesitated. She insisted that as not all of her friends were visually impaired it was still important to her to design her living space with a visual element. And knowing me, she trusted that she didn't have to see them to like them. This was a friend with whom I've had many, many talks about art. Usually running along the lines of "what's the nature of beauty?" and "how does that change when you've lost a sense?". Does it? We talked about how really it's all the same thing. Beauty to see is like beauty to taste or touch. And if you're the sort of person who craves beauty Ð and if you can't see it in one place you'll find it in another. Ultimately, I realized that my hesitation was because I wished these paintings could be more for my friend, could provide different ways of experiencing beauty.
This desire to have my paintings explore other areas of sensual expression slowly evolved. A painting emerged where I filled all the negative space around the figure of a small girl with velvet. This girl peeks out from a string of beads, securely confident that she is hidden from prying eyes. The idea was that even with limited sight one could make this out. To heighten the irony the words "You Can't See Me" were marked out in Fisher-Price fridge letters that could be felt as a sort of poor substitute to Braille.
As a painter, I share a toddler's fascination with seeing. And as I often work with people as my subjects I frequently create a situation where the person viewed gazes back at the viewer. With "You Can't See Me" I play with the distance between seeing and being seen. What happens when the gaze is withheld Ð when the subject seeks to protect his or her own private world from the prying eyes of adults. And while all my work is about celebrating sight through colour and shape and gesture, I'm adding an element where the absence of sight is explored through texture and scenario.
- Kirsten Johnson, 2006
Still from "Zed tv" interview,
2002