Artist Profile: Marie Johnson
This
work is by Christen Marie Johnson, a 1994-95 Advanced Placement student from Plano Senior
High School, Plano, Texas. She describes her work as "a bit of a dream" or
sketch. Marie was studying Russian language, and was fascinated by Russian culture. These
interests are reflected in the work, which is in some respects reminiscent of the work of
the Russian painter Marc Chagall.In Marie's work, the woman near the bottom represents "the proletariat," the clock in the background represents the rush against the practicalities of time, and the subject matter in general has emotional ties for its creator. The color theory employed in the piece evolved as the work developed. Marie is pleased with the color contrasts and the composition, and enjoys the fluidity of the work as a whole.
Marie is unusual among AP Studio Art students in that she had only one year of formal art in high school prior to her AP course, when she and her family lived in England during her tenth-grade year. She has always done a lot of sketching and drawing, and took a figure-drawing class between 11th and 12th grades, which she loved. At the beginning of 12th grade, she was admitted to the AP class on the basis of her previous work. Marie describes her AP course at Plano High School as extraordinarily well planned out. The students worked with a broad array of materials, and the opportunity to try her hand at a variety of media was one that she valued.
Currently, Marie is a studio art major at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where she is also continuing her studies of Russian and related subjects.