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Peter L. Johnson is an artist who draws on his varied background as a documentary photographer, solo street performance artist, social activist, and practicing Buddhist to create his present body of work. These lyrical photographs discover beauty amongst our devastating impact on the environment. While a BA in Economics, graduate study in Art and Photographic History, and a MFA from the University of Minnesota shape his vision, perhaps the most important influence for his work are his walks in the drosscapes within the Upper Mississippi River watershed where his dog discovers places for him to photograph.
Artist Statement
A few years ago I was walking in the woods with my dog, friends, a borrowed digital camera, a melancholy mind, and the dormant skills of a street photographer. A scabbed-over hole in the ice stirred my need to create photographs. Here was a soulful blue wound full of raw beauty. Without much thinking (always a good idea), I took a few pictures. Only later did I see the dance of the orange maple tree seeds, the twirl of the discarded fisherman’s string, and the image’s simultaneous galactic and microscopic forms. Much later I realized that this gift from nature was a moment when a new way of seeing came alive in me.
The essential tenet of my artistic practice is seeing beauty in damaged places. As a photographer I am in search of “awake” moments when the beauty in my viewfinder overwhelms the objects in the frame. I venture to the fringes of what we call nature, off the well-beaten path. Often I find myself working on the boundaries of bodies of water, the edges of industrial sites, or walking on the ice in deep Midwestern winters with my dog by my side focusing on streaming oil, phosphates run amok, or the flotsam from our human endeavors. I use a photographic palette of up-close views, lyrical colors, and abstract shapes to see and capture images that have been compared to aerial views, human portraiture, microscopic forms, paintings, river deltas, and galactic phenomena. These layers embedded in my artwork reveal hidden, unsettling truths that until now have gone unseen. Creating these documentary photographs elicits in me a natural, visually sensitive intimacy that I offer to anyone that sees my work.
In my artistic practice, I expand on the bumper sticker slogan, “Take only photographs and leave only footprints”, by taking corroding batteries, Styrofoam, and Mountain Dew bottles (along with my images) out of our lakes, rivers, and oceans. Along the way my own inner landscape is touched and I get a peek at the path towards a more caring relationship with this planet. I hope my work awakens awareness, disallows complacency, and offers an emblem to inspire recovery. This seen truth and beauty has done this for me.
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