The romantic, extremely detailed, luminous drawings of Miles Johnston remind me of classic Surrealism combined with a delicately beautiful modern aesthetic. Dealing with themes of doubling, recurrence, division, and distortion, the wavering, haunting, gentle gorgeousness of these graphite and paper works depicts inner states of being: crisis, sublimeness, desolation. What I particularly love about his drawings is the tenderness of the light, which is so palpable, yet so dreamy. Johnston manifests a wistful and almost idyllic feeling towards the subjects as in their melancholy radiance they undergo surreal transformations and expressions of interiority. The lyricism and tremendous realism of Johnston’s art resonate deeply with the viewer, invoking nostalgia as well as strangeness.
