Festoon
September 9 - October 7, 2000
From September 9 to October 7, Harlan Johnson is visiting Galerie Trois Points to present us three new series of works: Festoon, Palimpsest and Guise.
Deriving from the Latin word festa (feast), the English word festoon refers to a garland of flowers and leaves bound in a string, which is suspended in the form of an arch. Here, the artist uses this ornamental motif as a means of making dynamic the pictorial plane, which becomes a place where the order shows its intrinsic instability, a festooned surface where ephemeral sensations are manifested. It releases then a sensuality being able only to seduce the eye of the spectator.
Beyond the simple visual pleasure, this recent production reflects the interest of Johnson for the past and future conditions of painting. In this perspective, the present tables relate ‘noble’ art to other vernacular forms of expression such as the decorative arts and textiles. This exchange of motives and ideas seems to bring new answers to abstraction, the pictorial tradition on which we thought we had said everything.