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Wordless text and mark making

Ella Johnston, art and illustration. Photography Nathan Jones

My current work is an exploration of mark making. The marks are a kind of text. Some of the pieces are specifically asemic. They are an exploration of the types of marks I make when writing.

Asemic text, Ella Johnston artist

This is actually very personal. Because of the way I held my pen when I was a kid, I was bullied by a teacher for my writing. Ever since then I’ve been strongly protective over my writing and my mark making. And it’s something that I’ve needed to explore. It’s something that I’ve had to think about from an early age – the marks I was making and how I was making them.

Asemic poem ella johnston

It’s quite a psychological thing for me. I like my writing. People comment on my handwriting. What is ‘my own hand’? What is it to play and experiment with that? Asemic poetry really interests me because it’s about making marks and enjoying these marks without actually writing a text that people can immediately read. But the visual language of handwriting can be found within my own artistic practice. I also once I had my handwriting studied by a graphologist. She noticed all the flourishes and was alarmingly accurate with her analysis. Regardless of what words you write, the marks you make give the game away. I employ all of my handwriting and gestural mark-making in the pieces.

Asemic modernity Ella Johnston

 

The pieces are definitely wordless texts and there’s a dialogue between the different marks. But they’re also simply about being in the moment when the artwork is created. I might have my reflections or even a particular agenda, and it’s also in some ways a projection of the future, but really it’s simply about the moment, the now, in which the artwork is made. I don’t want to impose my own narrative. The question is just about what it means to make a mark, and to make those marks on the paper.

Water Meditations Sea Glass I, ink on Awagami Factory Bamboo washi paper Ella Johnston

With different papers you get different reactions. I love the experiment of paper. The surface is as important as the ink or the paint. A cheap watercolour paper, made without bleach so it’s greyish in tone, produces a certain effect. Some papers absorb liquid too much, some resist it. A washi inkjet paper and a fine washi rice paper give different results. Some absorb the ink very quickly, some completely blot it. 

Lifeforce poem, Ella Johnston

With a very fine paper, you’ve got to be careful if you want a solid line. You’ve got to be light, like you’re barely touching the paper, because if you apply any kind of pressure or wetness, it’s going to suck it up. It’s really delicate. Or you might use a good quality, heavy paper, and they’re so dense, but they hold colour so well that you’re challenged to be decisive in the marks that you make. On some papers the black ink buckles the paper, it sits and stays shiny on it, raised in relief. Some papers can look so frail against this force of the black. You have to work with that. You’ve got to work with the ink and the paper as equally important components.

Memory of days past, Fraggle, ink on Fabriano UNICA Printmaking Paper

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My mark making tools

Ella Johnston, artist materials. Photography Nathan Jones

It starts with playing.

I have to let intuition guide me a little. If I use a square brush, I know that I want to explore something about form, with spontaneity and looseness. It involves memory and even muscle memory of making those marks.

Ella Johnston, artist. Photography Nathan Jones
Photography Nathan Jones

 

If I pick up a pen I know I want to be precise, when I use a particular brush I want to be expressive in a different way. I’ll know it instinctively when I start.

Then, once I introduce the colours, form and composition, I’ll know what theme it’s taking. It can almost be like you’re in a trance, a slightly different level of consciousness. I’m alert, and the marks I make are deliberate, but there’s also a flow, a dance, which you don’t have to think about, and it just happens.

 

Memory of days past white-noise feedback ink on paper, Ella Johnston

If I’m holding a large square brush, how do I make that curve? How do I make those gestures, those swooshes and dashes that look like they’re moving even if they’re static? They’re still but they’ve got movement, like they’re about to fly. Or a mark that’s got to be so solid. I’m not thinking hard about it. If I’m too diligent it doesn’t work. I’ve got to be purposeful, but at the same time I’ve got to let go and be free. Focused but free.

Ella Johnston making marks

I’ve always liked ink. I like the unruliness of it and that you’ve got options to use a pen or a brush, and to water it down to create washes. There’s a lot of scope. 

Water Meditations Sea Glass III ink on Awagami Factory Bamboo washi paper, Ella Johnston

In the past few years I’ve also experimented with different types of mark-making tools. I’ve used feathers, and reeds from the marshes near where I live, and broom, and the seed-heads of teasel. They make different types of mark. And there’s something more fluid about inks than paint when you make those marks. I like its immediacy, its unforgiving nature.

In the depths, ink on Fabriano watercolour paper. Ella Johnston

I use a lot of Japanese calligraphy brushes of different sizes, and square brushes, and I also make my own tin-can pens from old soft drinks and beer cans. They’re really a calligraphy tool but, like with the calligraphy brushes, I use them for drawing and mark making. I like the playfulness I can achieve with the tin-can pens, the variation of line, and when I combine that with the softness of a brush it’s quite interesting. 

Asemic poem large scale, Ella Johnston artist

If I’m using soft round brushes, I might know that I want to press the full weight of the brush down and drag it. Or I might want to work with the tip of a calligraphy brush to produce very fine lines. With a tin-can pen you’re not going to get a consistent line. It doesn’t hold ink in that way. You don’t control it in the way you do with a brush.

Eucalyptus Ella Johnston

I often use the tin-can pens to create a kind of central column in the work, which is a kind of upwards life force. There’s a journey there, a sense of collision and violence, but an upward momentum and force. The hard lines and edges of the pen strokes, in contrast to the soft lines of the brush produce collisions. Then I’ll add extra shapes, circles or blocks of colour. And in doing all this there’s a search for balance, beauty and harmony. There’s a mood. It’s a mood of stillness and movement and the contrast between them. 

The Observations of Angelus Novus, The Storm, Ella Johnston

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Being an artist, some thoughts

art tools. Photography Nathan Jones

 Artists eh? Funny little creatures. Well some are. Some really aren’t. Anyway I was thinking about being an artist and I thought I would share some musings.

Ella Johnston, art and illustration. Photography Nathan Jones

I have no idea why I’m an artist. I don’t know whether it’s a compulsion, a habit or a passion. All I know is that I am more who I am when I’m painting or drawing, when I’m making marks or thinking about marks. 

art tools. Photography Nathan Jones

When I approach each new work, in some ways I don’t have any set thing in mind. I just kind of know I want to get to work on it. I might know I want to work with inks, or paint, or pens. Then, when I’m sat with the paper, canvas, the inks, brushes or pens, I take a bit of time. It’s almost like a sort of meditation. I take a breath, I think about the marks I want to make, and then I start. 

Ella Johnston, artist. Photography Nathan Jones

For me, I want a sense of finding some sort of peace in this chaos, or beauty out of chaos. It has to feel harmonious but have a real sense of visceral life. A lot of that is established in the first layer of black. If that’s wrong, it won’t work. 

Water Meditations Sea Glass II, Ink on Awagami-Factory Bamboo washi paper, Ella Johnston
Water Meditations Sea Glass II, Ink on Awagami-Factory Bamboo washi paper, Ella Johnston

 

I’m also very conscious of colour and colour density, and of what remains still against the eruption of other shapes and lines. The pieces are all very spontaneous, and yet in some ways not, too. Ink needs to dry before you add colour. One colour needs to dry before you add another. 

Of course, all the colours have connotations. A deep, vibrant red. A grey. A green. A strong, clear blue. There’s a multitude of stories associated them. You can say so much in what tone of grey you use and how it’s placed against something as visceral and solid as a black or a red.

Memory of days past, Indie, ink on Surrey Cartridge Paper, Ella Johnston
Memory of days past, Indie, ink on Surrey Cartridge Paper, Ella Johnston

If you put a red and a yellow together, you may suddenly feel more hopeful or invigorated. Putting orangey pinks, blues and yellows together can feel joyous. Some colours give a sense of opulence. But then I might add colours that relate to mid-century design and the London housing estates I’ve lived in or buildings I’ve worked in. Colour and form can be incredibly autobiographical. There’s a whole psychology of colour.

 Brutalist Asemic III, ink on Fabriano UNICA Printmaking Paper, Ella Johnston
Brutalist Asemic III, ink on Fabriano UNICA Printmaking Paper, Ella Johnston

 

I have no idea what people see when they see my work, or what they think about it. I’m not in control of it and I’ve no desire to be in control of it. That’s not up to me. It’s none of my business. I wouldn’t be so grand as to think I make any particular kind of impression.

Ella Johnston art studio photography Nathan Jones

That’s why I can’t really offer any practical advice for fellow artists. And there is no real reason for me to make the work I do. There is no practical reason for anybody to make art. But when I see other people’s work that excites me, it gets my brain going. I get all itchy. And so regardless of whether people like my work or what their reaction is, it’s that as an artist, and as a community of artists around the world – musicians or visual artists or dancers or writers – we are a network of people that provide a kind of alternative universe, or a reflection, or an opposition. Our function is to unsettle, to reward, to excite, to question, to spark. And if I’m part of that, then that’s cool with me. 

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A look inside my artist studio

Ella Johnston Artist in the studio

As I said last time that I’d put my personal vanity aside to give you a look inside my artist studio. So here I am, looking a bit tired, in the studio!

Ella Johnston, artist. Photography Nathan Jones
Photography Nathan Jones

I love having a large dedicated space where I can really make a mess, explore mark-making and create both large and small-scale works.

I’ve had the keys to the studio for a whole year today! So it’s apt I’m posting this now.

Ella Johnston Artist photography Nathan Jones
Photography Nathan Jones

I have certainly filled the space and made it my own. I’m always amazed whenever I get a new space that my work rate goes up and my desire to experiment and entertain new ideas increases dramatically.

Ella Johnston artist, photography Nathan Jones
Photography Nathan Jones

It really can’t be understated what a luxury, yet necessity for me (not one I can always afford), it is to create an environment that is totally focused on creativity. A space where I can see my tools and materials and be inspired by their presence. The colour, texture, mark and intensity possibilities of each instrument and surface. The space to play, to reflect, to research, read and generally be in space where your art practice is central.

Ella Johnston studio, artist. Photography Nathan Jones
Photography Nathan Jones

I’m lucky to have creative job that adds to both my artist life and my employment life. But sometimes those lines can get too blurred. Gaining that physical distance from the everyday work to concentrate purely on my artistic project is a gift indeed. And one I don’t take for granted.

Ella Johnston, artist materials. Photography Nathan Jones
Photography Nathan Jones

What do I do in my studio? Well, some days I’ll go in switch on the radio or some music and simply play with my art equipment. I’ll experiment, make mistakes and even have the occasional breakthrough. Other times I’m deeply immersed in a project or series, deep into creating my work. There are some times where I’ll sketch and work out ideas. And there are days where I’ll read, make notes and look out the window.

Ella Johnston, artist materials. Photography Nathan Jones

The space used to be a butchers, which is hilarious because I’m a vegetarian! From the get-go the studio has always had an incredible energy to it. This was very important to me as I felt immediately comfortable in the space – even before I filled it with the furniture, equipment books and little things that inspire me and make me feel safe.

Ella Johnston Artist Studio photography Nathan Jones
Photography Nathan Jones

I was so pleased to recently invite the photographer Nathan Jones into the studio to take some photos of me working. It was lovely to welcome him into the space and get a quality record of what is a very special and rewarding period of my creative life.

Ella Johnston, artist. Photography Nathan Jones
Photography Nathan Jones