Amanei Johnson

‘Force-to-flow’ is an interdependent relationship highlighting methods of accumulating artistic research and organizing my art-making process. ‘Force’ in this context can be defined as the moments in the artistic practice where I demand and exert energy—exerting ‘force’ to attain artistic research and disciplined routine. ‘Flow’ in this dichotomy is defined by moments of allowing creative spontaneity to create moments of intrigue.

Experienced through ‘loafing and inviting the soul’, —for example, a random conversation or resting contemplations on a train. The dualistic relationship permeates within the art-making process, wherein, force is found by applying knowledge from my research and transforming it into visual symbology. Flow, in opposition to it, is depicted through improvised applications. I advance my painting projects by harnessing ideas from my documentation process, sourced from sketchbooks, these repeating visual themes interconnect my overarching ideas. For example, weaving together topics of street culture, creative apparel, and spirituality. Illustrative stylizations in my work profoundly reference forms of language, textual and gestural.

The relationship of force and flow find similarities when discussing the pushing and pulling of lines, paint texture, background, middle, and foreground. The force and flow of these layered structures become determined while working through the artwork. Force-to-flow engages my representational depictions as well, introducing these pictorial elements through figuration and abstraction. The figures are rendered in relationship to the environment, intermingling back, middle, and foreground. Legible renderings of figures are then given the freedom to flow between abstracted and subjective pictorial grounds.

Some examples of force-to-flow in visual form include abstraction versus figurative and gestural versus contextual language. My elemental application process includes automatism, gestural marks, and translating symbolical embodiments. All of my philosophical embodiments, preserved in my art projects and absorbed from my immediate surroundings, originate from my nomadic lifestyle and childhood experiences of traveling and socializing.

Amanei Johnson was born August 31, 2000, in Peoria, IL, and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Her nickname is Nemo and artist name is JHÍN. She went to a different school every year of her high school education, all in varying districts of Illinois. Nomadic travel allows these experiences to inform her art practice. The context of travel in art continued with her education for a Bachelor's in Visual Arts from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, a historically black college in the southern belt. Illustration and painting are two of her main art application practices, enjoyed in her early childhood then pursued in her undergraduate career. Her Master in Fine Arts program is at Alfred University, which offers an international draw to Germany. She aims to show appreciation for her lens of the human condition, as an individual in conversation with the overall collective.