Are these interiors real, or are they imaginary? The truth is somewhere in between. Visitors to the Alan Cristea Gallery, London, are in danger of rearranging their faces by walking into Ben Johnson’s wall hangings; the works skilfully trick the eye with their realism and flawless perspective through geometric precision.
Not all is flawless, however, as the Museum Rooms paintings reveal on closer inspection. Johnson has moved away from pristine depictions of interiors with this series, instead concerning himself with the scars of age that build up in long-standing institutions – those of the kind that can’t be completely healed by decoration. So we see he interior of the Neues Museum in Berlin, ravaged by bombing during the war and left derelict until a major restoration project in 2003. Signs of the destruction still remain, as they do at Museo Regional de la Revolución, whose homely interior reveals, when viewed in detail, bullet holes in its brightly-coloured walls. Get the full effect in person until 7 June.
The Roman Room, 2012-2014
Acrylic on canvas
180 x 250 cm
© Courtesy of the artist
and Alan Cristea Gallery
Ben Johnson in his studio,
Photo, Eleanor Scott
Courtesy of Pelham Communications.
Room of the Niobids II, 2012-3
Acrylic on canvas
180 x 252 cm
© Courtesy of the artist
and Alan Cristea Gallery
Ben Johnson in his studio,
Photo, Eleanor Scott
Courtesy of Pelham Communications.
Approaching the Mirador, 2012-3
Acrylic on canvas
225 x 150 cm
© Courtesy of the artist
and Alan Cristea Gallery
Ben Johnson in his studio,
Photo, Eleanor Scott
Courtesy of Pelham Communications.
Fatherland Room, 2012-2014
Acrylic on canvas
180 x 250 cm
© Courtesy of the artist
and Alan Cristea Gallery
Ben Johnson in his studio,
Photo, Eleanor Scott
Courtesy of Pelham Communications.
Mythological Room, 2011-2012
Acrylic on canvas
180 x 120 cm
© Courtesy of the artist
and Alan Cristea Gallery
