Brian Johnson
I’m a visual artist, that primarily makes physical and digital drawings and prints. As a printmaker, I love the graphic language, probably because I was raised on comic books. Printmaking as an art medium requires drawing too, but allows you to make multiples rather than just a single drawing. I mainly make screen prints and relief prints.
Before I started teaching, I worked as a master printer creating screen prints with Latina/o artists as part of the Serie’ Project. I’ve been teaching studio art at Austin Community College since 1998. I also teach Printmaking and other Studio foundations courses at Texas State University, where I am a full time faculty member. Although not a Texan by birth, I’ve lived in Austin longer than anywhere else and that’s where my family and I call home.
Current Courses 2020-2021
ARTS 2333 Printmaking I
Adjunct Professor
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.bjohnsonstudio.com/
Instagram: @bdjohnsonstudio
Faculty Spotlight
What is your favorite technique or topic to teach? Is there one lecture or selection that is the most fun for you to teach?
I love the language of graphic arts because I grew up on comic books. I guess that’s partially why I’m a printmaker and enjoy sharing my love of prints and the process of making this type of art. I’m also a formalist, so teaching and talking about composition and color is in my wheelhouse. The communication of ideas and expression of emotion through art is something that I naturally gravitated to when I was a student. Seeing others explore ways of communicating by creating their own art is a gratifying experience to share.
What skills and abilities make a good teacher?
I try to break down complex processes and formal compositional issues to make them easier to understand. I tend to be very organized and to build a course curriculum so that each step of an assignment builds on the last one. By carefully analyzing things myself, I hope to give students a good starting place or entry point into an artistic concept. What they may quickly learn, and I too am constantly reminded of, is that in visual art, you must use your eyes and never assume something is true or that one approach will produce an expected result.
What do you most hope students will take away from your class?
An appreciation for making things with their hands and the satisfaction that it can bring. I hope students see that I have only helped them create a small crack into a much larger world of visual art and creative problem solving.
Name a place that you’ve traveled to, but feel like you need to go back to because you didn’t have enough time there.
Paris. My wife and I only had two days there, but the memory of those two days, 11 years ago, still lingers freshly with me. Travel also inspires me to be less of a homebody, especially when I start to think of that experience. I become so consumed with the day to day, that I neglect planning these types of trips.
What do you like to do for fun?
I enjoy playing sand volleyball with a couple of groups each week. This is my primary exercise and I’ve been doing it for 20 years. We play competitive, 2 on 2 or more, with the goal of getting better, but it’s also about playing with people I enjoy being around. The community in Austin is pretty great and I occasionally play in tournaments and leagues as well.
