David Stephen Johnson (b. Pittsburgh, 1949) is an abstract painter based in Westport, Connecticut. He was awarded a scholarship to college as a star quarterback, playing for South Dakota State, and later earned his BA in Business Administration at the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. He lived in Chicago in the 1970s and shared a studio space with a sculptor at the Chicago Art Institute. He fostered his love for art while developing a series of paintings for his first show at Riverside Gallery.
“Possibility and uncertainty are inherent to my practice. Always a play between anxiety, apprehension and, sometimes, when I get lucky, exhilaration. My language is color,” says David
David Stephen Johnson embraced his self-taught path in painting, building a deliberately unpublished body of work studying color and shape, partly influenced by post-war abstract expressionists. His natural athleticism and grace led him toward the great action painters. In 2017 he retired from the business to pursue his passion for painting.
October 2021 was David’s first solo show at ArtExpo New York on Pier 36 in Manhattan with his new abstract paintings. 2022 brought an invitation by Alpha’a to join their roster of international artists for participation in numerous prestigious showcases and projects happening around the world. Both David’s large-scale canvases as well as his new works on paper were selected to be included. Currently, Indigo II hangs in the newly opened Molteni&C flagship on Madison Avenue in New York City.
David’s works are in numerous private collections in Greenwich and Westport, Connecticut, Westchester County, New York City, Palm Beach Florida as well as Nice, France.
“Painting is like breathing to me. I am pulled in, to the work, every day. The process is a physical act. I connect to my body and to myself in a sort of visceral dance. The act of painting is unmediated by thought. It starts with a simple stroke or mark that leads to the next one in a continuous flow,” says David