Now Isn't That Lovely
Stephen Johnson
Stephen Johnson’s approach to making draws from a diverse range of creative divisions. The work blurs the boundaries between fine art and design by using applied art as a platform.
His pieces from the ‘Now Isn’t That Lovely’ series are a take on a classic, kitsch image, subverting tradition via the surreal.
Whimsical and playful, they speak to our inner selves and permit an imagined reality, harmonious and utopian, safe and predictable, where teddies make friends with swans and mice share their dinner with dogs.
Johnson’s work appears at first hand a playful celebration of the ‘nice’ and ‘pretty’, but beyond the visual effect he uses domestic ornament and kitsch to consider our need for emotional function through objects of no physical use-value and explores our desire for escapism from the sometimes harsh realities of the everyday.
Now Isn't That Lovely # 16 by Stephen Johnson
Now Isn't That Lovely # 14 by Stephen Johnson
Now Isn't That Lovely # 6 by Stephen Johnson
