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Farm-Raised Artist Turns a Fracked Up Situation Into Art


February 4, 2013 | Julia Dawidowicz

Emerging mixed-media artist Jeremiah Johnson (not this one) will present his solo exhibit Never Enough in Chelsea this month, making his NYC debut. He was raised on a fruit and flower farm (awwww) in a region of Pennsylvania that has recently fallen victim to the Fracking Industry, something that has deeply influenced his art. Johnson constructs these miniature houses from unsolicited credit card applications that have been sent to him over the years. The mini- houses are modeled after homes in his town that were demolished in the greedy pursuit of natural gas. Heavy stuff.

“When the housing market collapsed, I realized that people were buying houses on credit that they no longer had, and it was sort of the American dream,” Johnson explains. “I left the credit card applications unopened as an insult to the companies that sent them to me.”

His wide-ranging collection, which he describes as “oversaturated” and intended to slightly overwhelm the viewer (in a good way, I think), draws influence from Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn and 1960s pop art — check out one of his pieces, Warhol and Basquiat Are Neighbors above for a sneak peek. View Johnson’s solo exhibit Never Enough, Feb 7- Feb 14, Kostabi World, New York.