The
place I lived and painted for the first years of this
decade was less than a mile from Logan International
Airport. From my window, over the dilapidated
rooftop peaks and widow-walks, I could just see the
control tower and hear the jets warming up on the
tarmac. The airliners didn’t fly overhead often,
but when the wind blew from the right quarter, the tower
sent their thundering bodies across my neighborhood,
tripping car alarms in their wake.
No small wonder that they began to insert themselves
into my paintings. At the time I thought of them
as symbols evoking our fetish for mobility, fast
getaways, effortless departures, easy destinations and
collapsing distances. The Logan jets of September 11th
changed that, of course.
These photographically based paintings of jets composed
with many layers of clear acrylic and countless fine
brush strokes, where created on the cusp of a great
change of perception in our world.
I paint in order to leave a physical record of time’s
passing and to puzzle over what our time is about.
My faith is a project to remember what I’ve seen
and wrestle with what I think is. I paint to
take note.
Bradford Johnson
South Boston, 2004
E-mail:
bradmail@mindspring.com
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