Gallery 18 is pleased to announce the debut exhibit of photographic prints by Jeff Johnson, “City from a Seasoned Eye,” on view from May 31 through June 30.  Reception: Sunday, June 2 from 11am – 1pm.  Refreshments will be served and all are welcome!

A resident of Riverdale for the past 14 years, I was born in New York City, lived in the Bronx (Parkchester) and was raised in East Texas. With degrees from Harvard and Berkeley, I have worked in both academics and finance. For many years I was a banker financing major office buildings in New York, London, Chicago, Toronto.  I spent a lot of time out and about studying the structures and the life around them. Once I retired from that work, I was able to devote my energies to art.

In recent years, I have concentrated on the art of photography, working with images captured in New York, London, Philadelphia, California, Southeast Asia, and the deserts of southeast New Mexico. I had pursued photography as an art in the early 1960s at Harvard’s Visual Arts Center. My influences were Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, MOMA’s Family of Man collection. With my camera, I set out in the City like a hunter, looking for the shape, texture, or composition that startles and delights me. In order for this to happen, I have to be blessed by both my mojo and my muse. The mojo is the drive, the hunter’s hunger, while the muse is the sensitivity to see aesthetic treasure.  Although they can both be awakened from a sluggish start, if they are not both there, the work is not possible.

Back in my studio, at my workstation, I select promising images from my harvest, and nurse them to their best selves with my digital tools.  Then I curate, choosing among the developed images those which speak most strongly to my sensibility and which work together a collection. This work gives me deep pleasure, and also happens only when I have both muse and mojo with me.

The 28 images, from years 2015 through 2018, present shapes, textures, and compositions which caught my eye in New York City, mostly along the MTA Number One Line in the Bronx and Manhattan.