Walrus
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80475
Description: The alternative title for this image is Mute, referring to lack of communication or inability to bridge gaps between species.
Measurements: 106.68 x 96.52 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2010
Materials: charcoal on paper
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Work by Ashley Johnson
Dasart/Victoria
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80456
Description:
Measurements: variable
Collection:
Date Made: 1994
Materials: mixed media
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Transmigrations
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80457
Description:
Measurements: variable
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Materials: mixed media
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Bullet
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80458
Description:
Measurements: 3.5 x2 x 3 metres
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Materials: steel, coal dust, resin, wood
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Bullet Released
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80459
Description:
Measurements: 3.5 x 2 x 3 metres
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Materials: steel, coal dust, resin, wood
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Beautiful Beasts
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80460
Description:
Measurements: 106.68 x 96.52 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Wildebeest Woman
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80461
Description:
Measurements: 106.68 x 96.52 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2001
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Hyena
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80462
Description:
Measurements: 106.68 x 96.52 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2003
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Feral Encounter
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80463
Description:
Measurements: 106.68 x 96.52 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2005
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Going Home
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80465
Description:
Measurements: 66.04 x 101.6 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2006
Materials: pastel on paper)
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Mind of a Soldier
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80464
Description:
Measurements: 198.12 x 101.6 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2006
Materials: pastel on paper)
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Anomalous Position
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80466
Description: Audio track:
Anomalous Position is an uncertain coupling. It deals with the anomalies of inter-sex where female and male possibilities coexist. The reality that we surround ourselves with often doesn’t make allowance for ambiguity and contradiction. In defining ourselves we induce imprisonment even as we express freedom. To my mind, reality is a figment of the imagination. By this I mean that the creative chaos of possibility is the flux of existence and the act of naming or identifying co-ordinates, merely indicates a momentary bias.
Measurements: 106.68 x 96.52 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2007
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Latch
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80469
Description: There is a myth that is replicating furiously on the net: African tribal men eat cows' menstrual matter and grow huge testicles.
African people living in tropical mosquito ridden regions do exhibit more of this abnormality but it has nothing to do with eating the menstrual blood of cows. It is elephantiasis, a condition brought on by a mosquito-borne worm.
The Masai of Kenya do make a cut on a cow’s neck and drink the blood as a source of nourishment. Cattle are a source and sign of wealth, much like money in Western society. The horns are meticulously shaved on one side so they grow into decorative shapes. An important social custom amongst African people is hospitality. Even strangers can knock on a door and expect food and lodging.
The myth about Africans eating menstrual matter and growing huge testicles is an example of a Western inability to empathize with other cultures. Latch reverses the myth. The title is taken from maternal jargon where the baby is said to latch, learning to drink from its mother’s breast.
Measurements: 101.6 x 93.98 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2008
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Grade Rape
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80470
Description: This painting refers to events in my life. The Galapagos tortoise represents age and the raccoon, badger and Tasmanian devil stand for small scavengers.
My friend found her 92 year-old mother-in-law had been held hostage and raped by street children for two days while they ransacked the house. There was blood everywhere. The street children in South Africa live in doorways or wherever they can. They beg for money at traffic intersections while sniffing glue to obviate hunger. Generally they are orphaned or have run away from home.
Measurements: 101.6 x 93.98 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2008
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Necromance
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80467
Description: Necromancy is the practice of laying hands on the dead in order to communicate. Apparently it was a common practice for priests in some pagan cultures like the Moche of South America, to have sex with the sacrificial victim after death in an effort to communicate with the spirit world. Necromancy also has a long tradition in Greek and Roman cultures and many rituals were developed to facilitate the exchange. In Tibetan burial traditions, bodies are dismembered and fed to vultures as a way of reconnecting with the spiritual realm.
While sourcing imagery for my dead deer, I came across an interesting story. Bryan James Hathaway was arrested for having sex with a dead deer that had been killed by a car. The Wisconsin State was seeking to have him incarcerated for two years for a crime against sexual morality. Quite apart from his strange perversity, it says a lot about our Western society that the concept of having ‘sex’ with a dead animal is so taboo. There is an anomaly in deciding when an animal ceases to be an animal and becomes a carcass. We have a vision of life and death that, for many Western religions, devalues animals.
Measurements: 101.6 x 93.98 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2008
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Rethink
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80468
Description: This painting uses August Rodin’s famous statue, The Thinker, liberated from its pedestal and combined with a hamadryas baboon head reminiscent of Albert Einstein. The Chimpanzee in the background observes and ‘apes’ the Thinker’s pose. Bonobos are complex animals that use sex as currency for social interactions. The female sex organ is external and very prominent. Their society is matriarchal, benign and very tolerant of diversity.
Neo Darwinists state that humanity shares a common ancestor with bonobos and chimps. The implication is that genetic mutations took the lines in different directions, but the fossil evidence has not been very conclusive.
Professor John A. Davison’s manifesto called An Evolutionary Manifesto: A New Hypothesis for Organic Change challenges the Neo Darwinist version of events. He focuses on the chromosomes, not the genes, and claims that evolution took place at the first meiotic division through irreversible breaks in the chromosomes, centromeres and centrioles. He concludes that the second meiotic division or sex developed as a conservative measure to limit evolution and predicts that no further evolution will take place.
Measurements: 101.6 x 93.98 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2008
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Pox
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80471
Description: This painting refers to the strange exchange of poxes between Europe and the New World. The first epidemic of the Great Pox (syphilis) occurred after Columbus’ sailors returned. Much later, Europeans brought small pox to the New World, decimating Native Americans, whose immune systems were unaccustomed to the bacterial onslaught. I have used the ubiquitous European Green toad and a New World blue poisonous dart frog to symbolize the encounter. The frog exhibits the tertiary phase of the disease.
Deborah Hayden’s book Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis, considers the spirochete’s influence on creativity, indicating that famous artists like Vincent Van Gogh and philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche might have been affected neurologically. Other important historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler and Ludwig von Beethoven may also have been touched by the bacterium. In a sense, it is intertwined with human history.
Measurements: 101.6 x 93.98 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2009
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Walrus
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80475
Description: The alternative title for this image is Mute, referring to lack of communication or inability to bridge gaps between species.
Measurements: 106.68 x 96.52 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2010
Materials: charcoal on paper
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Communion
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80473
Description: This image uses an Indian elephant and tiger, referring to the linkage between species and the interdependence we all partake in.
Measurements: 106.68 x 96.52 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2010
Materials: charcoal on paper
Virtual Collection: drawn, Original CCCA
Rue
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80472
Description:
The title “Rue” is a pun on the slang for kangaroo, ‘Roo’ with the added dimension of gravitas or remorse, as in “rue the day”. The image is set in a parched land as the environment consumes humans just as much as they devour its natural resources.
Large snakes are able to unhinge their jaws and expand to swallow the entire animal. I am not sure they can move much after this but it takes several weeks to digest anyway. So, to me, this painting is a bit like the dollar sign, constricting and consuming everything in its path. The snake-man’s erection is symbolic of that sexual and unreasoning will to power.
Measurements: 101.6 x 93.98 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2010
Materials: acrylic on canvassette
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Pelican Pauper
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80474
Description: This drawing is part of a series that eroticizes beggars, amputees and other unusual conditions. In India beggars have their legs tied behind their head to make them look more pathetic. The pelican inverts its pouch as a sign like ‘empty pockets’. It is an ancient symbol of Christ because people thought they were stabbing their own breasts to feed their young, mistaking the blood from the fish that stained their feathers.
Measurements: 106.68 x 96.52 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2010
Materials: charcoal on paper
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Xenotransplant
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80476
Description: Audio track
The ‘Crimes Against Animality’ series are monumental ‘Social Conscience’ paintings that explore human and animal histories. ‘Xenotransplant’ references failed experiments to farm interspecies organs. Genetically modified pig organs were grafted onto baboons that were supposed to host the organs until transplantation into humans. Baboons are classified as vermin so they are not protected. Stem cell research has replaced this kind of experimentation now.
An ambient soundtrack accompanies the painting, which was created in ‘Garageband’ using my voice, various sound effects and internal body sounds recorded with a contact microphone. It includes discussion about the experiment and a conversation with my mother about the baboon she had as a child, coincidentally called Johnson.
Ultrasound directional speakers transmit the sound in a narrow 1-foot beam.
Measurements: 170.18 x 436.88 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2011
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Seahorse
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80478
Description:
Measurements: 101.6 x 66.04 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2012
Materials: charcoal on paper
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Promiguous
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80477
Description: This is a tragi-comic painting on the subject of mastectomy and idealism. Australian scientists have been growing breasts on pigs as replacements for people who have undergone mastectomies. I borrowed some aspects of the reclining woman in this painting from Titian’s Danae, referring to the odalisque tradition, which represents an ideal of Western womanhood. Surgeons often show a surprising lack of aesthetic sensibility in mastectomy operations, which adds a grotesque element to the painting.
Ref: Bernard o’Brien Institute of Microsurgery (Melbourne)
Dr Phillip Marzella
Measurements: 101.6 x 93.98 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2012
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Mutate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80479
Description:
Measurements: 152.4 x 121.92 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2012
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Pupate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80480
Description:
Measurements: 152.4 x 121.92 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2012
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Implicate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80483
Description:
Measurements: 152.4 x 121.92 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2013
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Cybernate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80481
Description:
Measurements: 152.4 x 121.92 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2013
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Reiterate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80482
Description:
Measurements: 152.4 x 121.92 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2013
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Exfoliate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80484
Description:
Measurements: 152.4 x 121.92 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2013
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Impregnate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80485
Description:
Measurements: 152.4 x 121.92 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2013
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Conjugate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80489
Description:
Measurements: 60.96 x 45.72 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2014
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Ponder
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80490
Description:
Measurements: 50.8 x 40.64 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2014
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
ButtX
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80488
Description:
Measurements: 71.12 x 55.88 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2014
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Sublimate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80487
Description:
Measurements: 91.44 x 30.48 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2014
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Operate
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 80486
Description:
Measurements: 152.4 x 101.6 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2014
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Raven
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 81898
Description:
Measurements: 30.48 x 30.48 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2014
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Maw
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 81901
Description:
Measurements: 45.72 x 30.48 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2015
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Hive
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 81900
Description:
Measurements: 71.12 x 55.88 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2015
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Fin
Artist: Ashley Johnson
Work ID: 81899
Description:
Measurements: 243.84 x 609.6 cm
Collection:
Date Made: 2015
Materials: acrylic on canvas
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
