Time has been starkly revealed as a maker of its own mystery, as two calendar years contract to a moment and expand beyond our wildest imaginations. Our lessons from this time, manifested in all areas of our lives, and especially in art, will persist for millenia. Johansson Projects is thrilled to present the following two artists for EXPO CHICAGO 2022, a duo that brings awareness to this flux, expanding on the particularities of environment and community, quarantine and reflection.

Alexander Kori Girard’s petroglyphic figures and modernist forms all vibrate together, creating a landscape of interconnectedness. Guided by his early childhood impressions of folk art from his legendary grandfather of the same name, Girard works in a range of mediums including acrylic paint, collage and watercolor. Using an all-over composition reminiscent of textile design and the New York school of the mid-20th century, Girard densely populates his surfaces by birthing these figures and forms of ancient nature onto a grounded field of activity. The absence of a horizon in these works defies a sense of hierarchy. In these spaces, viewers are set free to navigate and insert their own narratives within works that hum with a spiritual vibration that travels across history and space. Alexander Kori Girard (b. 1979) lives and works in Berkeley, California.

Raw and energetic pandemic portraits created by Robert Pokorny reveal both the frustrations of confinement and an exuberant eruption of the pent up energy engendered by the lockdown. Their interplay of elements, bright pinks and reds bursting forth with dramatic shapes and lines, function to add a dynamic abstract narrative to these compositions. From Sasha Bogojev: “Exclusively portraying himself and his wife at times of quiet reflection, Pokorny managed to capture all the shades of gray we’ve been going through in the year of Covid, social unrest, and a range of natural disasters. Using different approaches to the deconstruction of human figure, his latest series is a ‘greatest hits’ of sorts, capturing the selection of familiar low spirits. The concern, the apathy, the anxiety, the fear, and the helplessness are all depicted in a wonderfully delicate way with thin layers of paint allowing the linen texture to come through sitters’ faces.” Robert Pokorny (b. 1969) lives and works in Los Angeles, California.