Khari Johnson-Ricks

Khari Johnson-Ricks (1994, New Jersey, USA) lives and works in New Jersey. He graduated in Fine Arts from Hunter College, New York in 2019 and studied Animation and Illustration at Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey in 2016. Johnson-Ricks is a multimedia artist whose practice extends across media, including painting, performance, murals, zines, and nightlife spaces. He especially creates intricate, exuberant scenes from paper constructions painted in shellac ink and watercolor. Exploring the illusory potential of paper, the works make use of the medium’s graphic flatness to create two forms of depth. In situ, his tableaux appear like portals to dreamlike realms, while blank passages of paper bring the viewer back into the material plane of the work. The themes he explores range from family, to community, from friendship to life in general, taking inspiration also from vernacular movement traditions and martial art practices. The artist’s compositions become testaments to the irrepressible urge of the imagination to metabolize, to reinvent, and to transcend. His work has been included in exhibitions at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2021); Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, New York, New York, USA (2020); Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, California, USA (2019); Special Special, New York, New York, USA (2018); and the Elizabeth Foundation, New York, New York, USA (2017), among others. He has created public murals for the city of Newark as part of Mayor Ras Baraka’s “Model Neighborhood Initiative” and “Gateways to Newark” Projects. His zines are featured in the library collections of the Thomas J Watson Library at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art Library, New York, and The MOMA Library, New York.