Speed Bump
For Speed Bump, Johnson has created school bus seats and positioned them on the gallery wall to be seen as if one were sitting aboard a bus looking at the back of the next seat. Constructed from childhood recollections, the bus seats are scaled to be larger than life in an effort to conjure an adolescent perspective.
Johnson’s artistic technique is one of juvenile vandalism. A cigarette lighter melts the vinyl and is pressed head first into the softened and smoldering fabric to leave a permanent indentation. The works are spray painted and selectively wiped away leaving pools of paint which reveal the depth of the branded vinyl “seat.”
Each seat showcases a different cartoonish Lucky Charms marshmallow. The familiar, childish subject matter lowers the guard of the viewer while the delinquent technique used to create the work pressures the viewer to reconsider the mode of construction of their own memory.
Tim Johnson (b. 1988; Chicago, IL) is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Detroit, MI. Johnson’s artwork concerns memory and its relationship to found objects. His work presents an uncanny world refracted through his own connection to the everyday. Johnson earned a BFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2012. Johnson’s exhibitions includeTranquilizer, A.D. Gallery, New York, 2021; The Housewarming, Dominic Palarchio, Detroit, MI, 2019;Correlation, Sergi Vutuc, Chicago, 2014; andShaking Peter, Indianapolis, IN, 2015.