Video: Retro Pictures: Restrained and Unsettling Illustrations by Paul Johnson
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
British artist Paul Johnson is best known for his retro paintings. His works are fanned by the atmosphere of the 1940s, or rather, they demonstrate how the "era of radio" was reflected in the cinema and the visual arts. Clear lines and muted tones, expressive faces, understandable symbolism - this is what distinguishes a series of illustrations by Paul Johnson.
English illustrator Paul Johnson lives in the small North Sea town of Whitley Bay, near Newcastle. But he plans to move from a remote province by the sea to London, where he will meet and exchange experiences with other artists.
Paul Johnson grew up an introverted child, and his friends were replaced by drawing, music, reading and films. If his childhood had passed differently, Paul Johnson would probably not have been an illustrator (at least he himself believes in it). And frankly, certainly not to create oppressive retro-style pictures with sad and brooding characters.
Paul Johnson never went to art school and is a graphic designer by training. While still at the university, while working on projects, he realized that most of all he loves to draw pictures. And by the third year, not a single project could do without them. Therefore, over time, the artist focused on color illustrations, and learned from his own mistakes.
In Northern England, where Paul Johnson was born and lives, the sky is covered with low-low clouds almost all year round and it often rains. Therefore, in his retro-style pictures, you will not find either blue skies or a bright sun. Yes, the atmosphere in the artist's works is not particularly joyful, or rather, alarming. Smoking chimneys (another hello to the industrial city of Newcastle) and the shadow in the shape of a raised knife also do not add optimism.
Paul Johnson's characters are inseparable from their era. They fit into the retro furnishings as organically as the old wallpaper, which only slightly lags behind the walls.
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