Eric Johnson (sculptor)

Eric Johnson (born 1949)^[1] is an American sculptor.

Inspired by both art and science, Johnson creates composite works of wood, resin and automotive lacquer. The abstract works are sheathed in resin skins, often revealing glimpses of skeletal armatures and hidden architectures. Other influences have been the aerospace industry and his ancestral boat builder heritage.

“Fundamentally, I believe the driving force behind my work lies in my fascination with scale and the exploration of the underlying principles of physics. Through abstracted DNA strands and the study of wavelength patterns, my artwork bears witness to this research."^[2]

Johnson's work is associated with Post-Minimalist movement, which eschews the minimalist insistence on closed, geometric forms in favor of more open forms. Much of his past work was influenced by the Finish Fetish style, which achieves sensuous colors and pristine surfaces by using resins, automotive paint, plastics, and fabrication processes adapted from the industrial world.^[3]

Johnson was raised in Burbank in the San Fernando Valley, some 15 miles from downtown Los Angeles.^[4] He attended Los Angeles Valley College, then California Institute of the Arts, and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from University of California at Irvine, graduating summa cum laude. After graduation, he became a studio assistant to Tony DeLap and later to John Paul Jones and Craig Kauffman^[2]

He has lived and worked in San Pedro, California since 1996.^[5]

Art critic Leah Ollman, writing in The Los Angeles Times, has described Johnson's composite resin and wood sculptures as "sleek and smart", comparing their forms to those of Brancusi, and mimicking the "geometries underlying space, time and forms of life". ^[6]

Writing in "Artwork", Neil Kendricks described Johnson's work as coldly sensuous" despite their aesthetically pleasing arrangement of forms. He goes on to say that "the work doesn't just rest on a formal idea of icy, detached beauty" and notes that each sculpture holds space as though "marking the territory of an absent human presence."^[7]

Art critic Roberta Carasso paid tribute to the scientific inspiration for these works, saying "With resins that originated in the aerospace and automotive industries, Johnson attempts to portray galactic concepts – parallel universe, redundant collapse, and black holes."^[8]

In 2023, Johnson ha a one-person show titled, Madame X, at the William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA^[9]

His work was exhibited in a two-person exhibition in 2017, Eric Johnson and Peter Lodato, ^[10] and in 2024 in the Light Matter: Art & Science Collide, show, both of which were held at the William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA^[11]

In 2025, his work was included in the group exhibition, Moment of Perception, at King Studio, Venice, CA^[11] And in the same year, in the Beneath a Shared Sky, at the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA^[12]

Johnson’s work is held in public collections,^[9] including:

• Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California;
• Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California;
• Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, California^[13]

• 1996 Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant

• 1996 “Artist Beyond Disabilities” 1st Place, Long Beach, CA