Education
Johnson studied drawing and painting in high school at Staten Island Academy and at Randolph-Macon College, where he studied with Ray Berry and earned a bachelor of science degree in computer science. He studied painting and drawing with Jo Weiss, Lee Newman, Jack Boul, and David Holt at the Washington Studio School, Washington, District of Columbia, from 1987 to 1988, and attended graduate school in fine arts at Parsons School of Design, New York City.
During graduate school, Johnson supported himself doing odd jobs for various New York artists, most notably Frank Stella, Sol LeWitt, Sandy Skoglund and Stella"s assistant, Earl Childress. In the fall of 1990, while waiting to hear if he would be able to join LeWitt"s Wall Drawing Team, Johnson was offered a studio assistant job with Sam Francis and this is what landed him in Palo Alto.
He has since divided his time between California and Europe.
In 2007 he was an artist-in-residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Bethany, Connecticut.
Johnson is a 2015 Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome and the subject of a short documentary film, The Artist of Silicon Valley, by Meg Smaker. His paintings can be found in over 700 private collections and 12 United States. museums.
His work has been the subject of solo-exhibitions in Milan, New York, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Saint Helena, Oakland, Portland, and Scottsdale. Johnson"s paintings have also appeared in many feature films and television shows including The Holiday (2006), lieutenant"s Complicated (2009), The Lodger (2009), Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), and The Mindy Project.
