Harman Projects is pleased to announce Liminality, the latest solo exhibition by Miles Johnston. Following his last exhibition over six years ago, this new body of work features drawings in graphite and ink as well as paintings in oil and watercolor, highlighting the artist’s eclectic range.
The subjects found in Miles Johnston’s work outwardly represent their inner states, from love to fear and every emotion in between. Johnston explores the human condition through a richly developed language of visual symbolism where intimacy and interconnectivity are repeating themes in the artists work. Lovers intertwine and embrace, hinting at a deep longing for human connection as is seen in Attachment and Bound. Alternatively, themes of loneliness and ostracism come to the forefront in works such as Extinguished and countercurrent.
The artist states, “With language, we divide the world into opposites. Light and dark, hot and cold, good and evil…From a broader perspective these opposites can collapse: if there can be no inside without an outside, no life without death, in what meaningful sense do these words actually represent separate things?” The push and pull of opposing themes sets the stage for the ever present conflict in Johnston’s work. This conflict is essential to what makes the artist’s work resonate with the public.
Concurrent with the exhibition is the release of the artist’s debut monograph also titled Liminality. This 256 page tome details Johnston’s practice from 2016 to the current day. Reproducing every step of his production from thumbnail sketch to final work, and supplemented by texts by the artist, this milestone publication is a thorough look inside the mind of Miles Johnston.