Maxwell Alexander Gallery, Pasadena, CA September 6-27
The design-forward paintings of Brett Allen Johnson are easily recognizable for their style and color palette. However, the artist’s signature aesthetic didn’t appear overnight; rather, he developed it through years of observation and explorations in mark-making. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Johnson continues pushing the limits of what he can do with paint. It is that way of thinking that has allowed his work to be at once surprising and familiar.
“I’m never settled with technique, and always looking for new themes. Lately I have been layering and focusing on texture and color, along with design and form,” Johnson says. “I use lots of different paint handling and design styles, and try to let them be subservient to the bigger idea for a painting. Most importantly, as I progress, I try to understand my own impulses, why I might be drawn to one thing or another. Technique, composition, color and paint handling—they all say something even if we don’t intend them to. That’s OK, and even fun. But the more I can get to the heart of it, the more I can simplify a painting into just the parts I find indispensable, the essence. Those fundamentals become just tools in service of a vision.”
On September 6, Johnson will mount his next solo show at Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Pasadena, California. The exhibition will feature around a dozen paintings including two large-scale compositions measuring 50 by 100 inches and 40 by 70 inches.
COLOR & HAPPINESS is one of the central paintings for the show. It comes from an ongoing series Johnson has done of a chapel that he first saw in Taos Pueblo, located in New Mexico, about eight years ago. “I began to really think about the way [the chapel] frames the mountains. The local Pueblo community considers the Sangre de Cristos sacred, the origin of their life force. I felt like the contrast between the imposing yet beautiful Catholic cross atop the doorway and the Sangre de Cristos beyond to be not only an intriguing theme representing the intersection of these two cultures and beliefs, but one that resonated with me deeply,” says Johnson. “Lately the theme has turned into a conduit for personal expression and a challenge to distill an idea to its barest essentials.”
Through its vivid colors—blue and teal doorways—and striking light and shadows, the work captures the essence of the location. The painted adobe leads the viewer deep into the composition. “What is beyond these doorways…” the artist says, “it is my hope that others find something of their own there.”
Johnson’s explorations of the interplay of earth and sky are on display in works like GLASS WINDOW, NOT SOME OTHER PLACE and UINTA VEIL, where a classic Western art theme of voluminous clouds harkens to artists like Maynard Dixon. Johnson’s three paintings are starkly different, but capture how he skillfully translates the horizon, the atmosphere and the mood of a place. In GLASS WINDOW he paints “heavy clouds” that create a window to the sky; UINTA VEIL has a geometric swatch of rain; and NOT SOME OTHER PLACE depicts a location where his family has camped over the past two decades, with a modern nod to the pioneers of yesteryear in the form of a sheepherder’s makeshift trailer sitting in the landscape.
The show hangs through September 27. —Rochelle Belsito
contact information(213) 275-1060maxwellalexandergallery.com
This story appeared in the August/September 2025 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Subscribe today to read every issue in its entirety.
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