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An amazing and unconventional approach to photography has developed American photographer Jay Mark Johnson. His “Spacetime” photography functions like timelines: the motives are captured during a certain span of time, thus merging the recording of space and time into a single, linear “spacetime” continuum. Presently his work is shown in ACE Gallery Beverly Hills.

caravana nirvana #4 (Nirvana Caravan #4) (Detail), Belgrade, 2008

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JAY MARK JOHNSON SPACETIME

THROUGH AUGUST 29, 2009

ACE Gallery Beverly Hills

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(Info quoted from ACE Gallery Press Release)

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Jay Mark Johnson (*1955 Florida) produces photographic images that challenge the norms of perception. Employing a process that is distinct from conventional photography, he creates works that merge the recording of space and time into a single, linear “spacetime” continuum. The resulting photographs are akin to both seismographs and electrocardiograms in that, as timelines, they begin on the left and end on the right. The horizontal length of the image conveys an uninterrupted and fluid measurement of a brief span of time, varying in duration from 10 seconds up to 45 minutes.

bauen wohnen streifen #1 (Building, Dwelling, Stripes #1) (Detail), Hamburg, 2008

Johnson approaches this work as an open-ended exploration into the possibilities for timeline photography. In his Motion Studies series, the artist registers the free-flowing movements of Taichi dancers, ballet dancers and swimmers. The resulting images appear as gesture-driven “action paintings.”

His Anachronistic Nature series records familiar patterns of natural movement that have been transposed into singular, two dimensional time sequences. “Nature” is recognizable but appears to be out of sync with itself.

With his Topological Shifts he focuses on transformations that occur when a non-linear movement is re-rendered into a straight line graphic. The giant circular steel latticework of an amusement park ferris wheel is unwrapped into a delicate linear scaffolding.

But it is within his Spacetime Cityscapes and Landscapes that Johnson’s most inventive and interpretive developments have flourished, unique examples of landscape imagery. They have been photographed all around the world, including Belgrade (Serbia), Cetona (Italy), Hamburg (Germany), Hazard (Kentucky), Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, Rome, and Valencia (Spain). At each new location, Johnson develops an increasingly critical interplay between the place itself, its unique position in history and the unconventional visualizations that he creates. His cultural, linguistic and political references are far reaching and he applies them with incisive wit.

compressed time clouds #1 (Detail), Yukon, 2007

“Perhaps the most exciting aspect of his photography is that it tugs photography away from the gravitational pull of Euclidean documentation – which has dominated the field since its beginnings – and prods it towards new and ambitious aesthetic and intellectual goals.”

Johnson equates his visual experimentation to stepping “through the looking glass” with Alice. In this parallel world of shifted perceptions, the ground rules are changed. Horizontal space is obliterated, shadows are crisscrossed, directional movement is confounded. Individuals appear isolated from the spaces they inhabit, and the relative speed of an object causes its expansion or contraction. Though the images are true photographs, they challenge the viewer’s effort to decode them.

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About Jay Mark Johnson

taichi motion study #51, Los Angeles, 2006

Jay Mark Johnson holds a Master’s Degree in Architecture from Tulane University. Through the early 1980s, his associations with architects Peter Eisenman, Rem Koolhaas, Aldo Rossi and Lebbeus Woods allowed him to explore questions of representation and time in both built and conceptual architecture. Beyond architecture, Johnson’s varied and prolific career spans theatre and performance art, photography, live musical performance, and journalism.

Later he worked within the film industry and is now a cinema director with broad experience in visual effects production, having supervised, directed or otherwise contributed to the computer generated imagery for a dozen major studio films and television series, such as Outbreak, The Matrix, Titanic, Tank Girl, Moulin Rouge, and White Oleander and music videos for Michael Jackson, Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and others.

He lives and works in Venice, California.