Miles Johnston

I was born in the UK in 1993. I spent the first few years of my early childhood living in Brunei, Borneo, something that I am sure had a major effect on me. The totally different environment gave me the intuition early on that there is no true ‘normal’. In hindsight I have always been interested in anything that helps to transform my perception of the mundane. From mathematics, physics, philosophy, art, I always wanted to see the world around me as if for the first time. I have always felt a sense of the sublime, terrifying, awe inspiring strangeness of being.

The rest of my school years were in Hampshire, England. After getting involved in art forums as a young teenager and participating and learning for 5 years, I moved to Sweden to study at the Swedish Academy of Realist Art at the age of 18. Now I work part-time as an instructor at the same school whilst working on developing my own body of work. 

I work primarily in graphite and oils, using the human form as a vehicle to attempt to process the intensity and profound strangeness of the collective human experience. The distortions and transformations my subjects undergo serve to represent the experience of our internal state during crucial moments in our lives. Instead of focusing on literal representations of the world, I depict the surreal and abstract qualities of our subjectivity with the goal of creating works with a deep emotional resonance.

I have a strong sense that art makes the world a better place, and I am giving all I can to be of service in this way. My work means whatever it means to you.

- Miles Johnston