The south got something to see: Dallas artist Michael E. Johnson paints with the best of them
A lover of Hip-Hop, E. Johnson's work collected by icons Chuck D, Spike Lee
Michael E. Johnson heard something colossal come out of the radio speaker. This wasn’t Luther Vandross or Anita Baker or anything else you might hear on an oldies station.
This was different. It was aggressive. It was mean. And he liked it.
What he heard surely didn’t come from his town of Lake Jackson, Texas—a suburb outside of Houston. The music was U.T.F.O. “Roxanne, Roxanne—”a group from New York but it might as well have been from a different planet.
Johnson had no way of recording or knowing what he just heard. Instead, he did what he did when the material wasn’t available. He drew what was in his head.
A talent that he’d honed since he was a child which led to him selling his art to Spike Lee, having some of his production showcased in Chuck D’s gallery and the work being observed in his native Dallas.
While talking to Johnson at his house, music is bumping from his soundbar. This time, it’s Jay-Z. Across the room is a portrait of Hov with the Basquiat-like dreadlocks. The music is speaking to him, just like his childhood.
“Typically the creative process comes out of a lack of something…and for me, the lack of something that I had was being from a small town that didn't have access to certain things,” he said.
“My parents weren't big on going to Houston a lot because it just kind of was like ‘Hey, the big city is just too overwhelming.’ So there was a lot of things that I liked. And mind you coming from a small town in Texas— in the south—and seemingly everything that I gravitated to was like New York hip-hop. There just was stuff that wasn't going to be there anyway unless it was like in New York. So I had to make up a lot of stuff in my head and then just go, ‘Hey, that'd be neat.’”
Johnson had an appetite for sports. But by his junior year of high school, he left the basketball team and replaced that passion with paintbrushes. Art 3–an advanced-level course for fine art students—would replace the elective. He would doodle anything that piqued his interest and that was often sports and hip-hop. Replicating images in The Source magazine or designing T-shirts with big logos worn by rappers à la Dapper Dan. By the time he enrolled at Prairie View A&M, Johnson was doing work that most professionals would fight for. He graduated from PV with a B.A. in Advertising Art and a Post Baccalaureate studies degree in painting from the University of Houston. There was a problem. He was doing the art that he was trained and molded to do. But there was the grittier Pop art that Johnson wanted to do.
“I felt like I was on the cutting edge of something, but I didn't know what it was,” he said. “And I was having some success with it. And in the midst of having some success with it, something [in] me just didn't feel like I knew what I was doing. And I left grad school —after maybe a year— and I just was like, ‘Man, I'm done with it.’ I'm tired of being in school. I'm tired of trying to sell paintings and I'm not necessarily selling them. I thought that I was gonna be selling artwork a lot faster for a lot more money and whatever. I didn't really know the level of the grind that it takes.”
Johnson wasn’t going to be the starving artist. He left art alone in 1999 for a different career that was stable. Selling art to big stars and getting commissions from galleries was not in the cards then. Getting established as an artist is hard because well, you gotta eat.
Even with the help of social media, dealing art full time is a taxing process.
Dallas-based artist Bria Gladney shared her frustrations with selling her work.
“I need a job ‘cause I need money,” she said. “But I need money now so if I get a job, it won’t help me today. So, I need to sell art but my only platform to sell art is social media and my social media is stagnant. And the people who are going to buy my art already bought it. Now what?”
Johnson didn’t create again until 2015. He was too busy raising a son and working his day job. The stresses of working led him to pursue art again. But drawing again wasn’t that simple. He felt the game had left him. There needed to be a spark to shake off the artistic cobwebs. The world of art is fluid and new technology had made it even more unpredictable. He credits social media sites like Instagram where he could connect with other creatives to get acclimated. To find his style, he would draw. This led to his first series— “Faceblackness.” It’s a moody, dark piece of artwork. His series was showcased for First Come First Serve (2019) at the Fort Works Art Gallery in Fort Worth.
“I wanted to create something that was controversial but at the same time, I could use it to tell stories of this character that had various points in their life… where this is a person that’s trying to live to succeed but he’s being treated like he’s this pickaninny or he’s this minstrel show character,” he said.
“I used [inspired by] the work that I’ve seen from Spike Lee’s ‘Bamboozled’ where he had these minstrel show black characters.”
The work was getting the recognition that Johnson desired but 2020’s pandemic put a halt for him in getting more shows.
It was a major blow to the artists who depended on proximity for inspiration or to sell their work. Being forced to sit at home either made or broke a lot of people—artists included. Wired magazine noted artists were using digital spaces to advance their work.
“While some artists are burning out on screens, others have found there are some advantages unique to digital, socially-distant projects. For one, the internet is far more accessible than a SoHo gallery; for another, it’s a live canvas,” said Wired writer Lydia Horne.
The pandemic catapulted Johnson, leading him to work on his latest series. A brand of paintings labeled “The Chronicles.”
Johnson said the idea behind the title is that the paintings serve as mini-time capsules, taking moments from his childhood and sometimes taking key moments in black history to create these paintings.
John Coltrane is one of Johnson’s Chronicles. The artwork is dominant, with a painting of Coltrane playing his saxophone and his quintessential album “A Love Supreme,” written in bold, red letters.
Under the title is the date of the album, December 9, 1964.
This would be one of the many paintings Spike Lee would purchase from Johnson. Lee has been on the record for his love of Jazz. His 1990 film, “Mo’ Better Blues,” is essentially an ode to Jazz music. The painting caught Lee’s attention on social media with the help of the legendary group, Public Enemy.
“Public Enemy popped up and they liked my picture and put up a little fire sign,” he said. “So I was like ‘Oh snapped it worked (adding hashtags to his post)!’ Something said to respond to them. So, I responded, ‘Oh snap! Public Enemy is showing me love. Yall are one of the greatest rap groups of all time.’ And then I didn't hear anything back. I left it alone. I moved on. And about two hours later, I get a little [notification] on my IG. And it was… Public Enemy had taken my picture and reposted it on their IG page. They said ‘Man, you killed this, brother. We love this.’ Or something like that. And when I clicked on it, I saw they had tagged all these people. They had tagged Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Spike Lee, and like three or four other people.”
Lee saw a piece that Johnson already sold. While browsing his Instagram, Lee asked what else was available.
Lee couldn't be reached for comment but Johnson recalled the moment.
“I checked my DM and he was like ‘Yo, this is Spike Lee. I dig what you’re doing. Are these pieces that you have for sale?’” he said. “And I’m like buggin’! And so I told him that I just sold the “Do The Right Thing” piece like the day before. And so he’s like ‘Aww nah, man. I’m late!’ And so he’s like ‘What’s your number?’ So, I DM’d him my number and literally like 20 seconds later, I’m getting this phone call from New York. I picked the phone up and he said ‘Man, why didn’t you tell me you have all this artwork out here?’ And I was like ‘Uhh… because you’re Spike Lee. My bad, I didn’t tell you.’ [laughs]”
2023 has been good to Johnson. He’s had several group exhibitions in Dallas including the Ro2 Art Gallery, the Deep Ellum Art Company, 50 years of Hip-Hop art celebration at Dallas City Hall, and a solo exhibition at The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. He currently has work displayed at NYC’s Fulton Center with Chuck D’s art collective.
Hip-Hop wasn’t supposed to go this far. Painting rap legends, pop culture, and historical figures while earning a commission was merely a fantasy not that long ago.
This Fall, more of Johnson’s portraits can be seen at Spike Lee’s exhibition, “Creative Sources,” held at the Brooklyn Museum.
“The Spike Lee connection did a number of things for me,” he said. “First, it let me know that this is real and if you’re creating work that has value to it, that resonates with people… it doesn't matter where you’re from, who you are… that people will respond to what they like and people will respond to good quality work.”
I appreciate you chronicling my story as an artist on my journey! Keep creating this excellent content for the culture! MUCH RESPECT!