An exhibition by painter Stephen Robert Johns, who gained international attention after being invited to a special global project that engages in artistic “dialogue” with the late works of world-renowned architect Zaha Hadid, will be held throughout August at Gallery Chang in Gangnam, Seoul. Titled Stephen Robert Johns: Reading the Language of Nature Through Color and Curve, the exhibition presents Johns’s distinctive painterly practice at the intersection of architecture and painting.
A leading figure in American hard-edge painting, Johns is set to participate this fall in Traveling with Zaha, an exhibition at the Afragola high-speed railway station in Naples, Italy. The exhibition is a curated project in which contemporary artists respond to Zaha Hadid’s organic curves and architectural philosophy. Johns will present works that sensorially connect to Hadid’s curved structures through what he calls “topographic painting”—abstracted aerial views of the land seen from above.
For many years, Johns has traveled between California and Costa Rica, documenting patterns of mountain ranges, river systems, and farmland observed from airplanes. The organic terrains he captures bear a striking resemblance to Hadid’s architectural language of flow and curvature.
This visual dialogue continues in Johns’s August solo exhibition at Gallery Chang in Gangnam. Three painting series connected to the Zaha Hadid project—Puntarenas, Mountains & Volcanos, and Piedadis Church—will be shown together, revealing a resonant interplay that moves fluidly across the boundaries of architecture and painting.
By Han Jang-hee
