University of South Florida

College of The Arts

University of South Florida

Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing Ezra Johnson Exhibits in NYC Gallery

Wednesday, October 04, 2017
portrait of Ezra Johnson

Ezra Johnson, assistant professor of painting and drawing, exhibits new works in a solo exhibition titled Cap'n Crunch at the art gallery Freight+Volume in Manhattan, New York City October 13 through November 12.

Cap'n Crunch comprises painting, stop-frame animation, and sculpture to investigate the intersection between public versus private, historical versus contemporary, and formal versus topical considerations.

Johnson's inspiration for Cap'n Crunch stems from the breakfast cereal of the same name. Johnson harnesses the Revolutionary war uniform-clad Cap'n as a symbol of American imperialism, related clichés and mythologies, and hope for shedding these beliefs.
Johnson's inspiration also stems from tropical, worn-out and faded cities like Johnson's home city of Tampa, nature as a powerful force looming over the feeble endeavors of humans, and the historic Civil War site local to Johnson's residence.

Ezra Johnson is a painter and animator based in Florida and London. He was born in 1975 in Wenatchee, Washington and received an MFA from Hunter College in New York in 2006. He has exhibited his work at many prestigious venues such as the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas, Site Santa Fe Biennial, and the ICA in Philadelphia, as well as at galleries nationally and internationally.

An opening reception will be held on Friday, October 13, 2017, at 7 p.m. at Freight+Volume. For more information, visit the Freight+Volume website.