Tim Johnson

Tim Johnson
Australian, born 1947

Weaver 2 2004
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Geelong Gallery
Gift of Ian Rogers through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2020

Weaver 2 exemplifies Tim Johnson’s elaborate melding of signs, symbols and figures drawn from diverse cultural and spiritual systems including Tibetan Buddhism, Indigenous Australian Western Desert painting, and Asian art. In recent years he has worked in collaboration with Vietnamese artists and street artists to further encompass a ‘world’ view in his works.

Weaver 2 is distinct amongst Johnson’s paintings of this period, placing at the centre of the composition a humble mortal preoccupied with the work of human hands rather than a god or deity. Weaver 2 is typical of Johnson’s pictorial approach: figures, objects, elements and phenomena are dispersed across the canvas rather than arranged in a coherent or conventional perspectival space. The dot screen of concentric circles links the field of hovering elements within the painting, suggesting a certain unity between all things.