Humorous, poignant and tempting, sculptor Tamara Johnson’s works play with consumer culture in the most whimsical of ways. In “Get Me, Don’t Get Me,” Johnson’s first solo show for Dallas’ Keijsers Koning gallery, her toy-like foods delight the eye while offering reflections on labor, care and desire.
“I’m always mining for meaning and metaphor,” says Johnson, who co-founded Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, which closed last year. “With this show, I was also thinking about the systems of value we put on bronze or concrete and our relationships with those materials, and how I can change that value structure.”
Johnson drew on items from her home, that have a universal appeal. A pewter can of H-E-B fruit cocktail was painted in homage to Frida Kahlo and Paul Cézanne. Enameled pewter goldfish crackers (cast to be a bit wabi-sabi) are scattered across the gallery floor, recalling the candy works of the late Félix González-Torres. An array of pastel ice cream scoops, cast from cement and mounted on a wooden board, honor the memory of Johnson’s contractor father.
Having explored the concept of food since she first cast a cement picnic in a Brooklyn park in 2018, the San Marcos-based artist hopes her sometimes kitschy subject matter whets the appetite for viewers to examine their own unfulfilled cravings.
“You want something so badly, but it’s an endless attempt because desire is never done,” she says, describing her work as “a playful nod to a larger push and pull.”
Details
“Get Me, Don’t Get Me” by Tamara Johnson is on view at Keijsers Koning, 150 Manufacturing St., Suite 201, through Sept. 27. Open Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Monday and Tuesday by appointment only. keijserskoning.com.
Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.
This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, Communities Foundation of Texas, The University of Texas at Dallas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access’ journalism.
