Recent Work by Layet Johnson
Paper Hearts, 2024
2x44', woodblock print, collage
Paper Hearts Bookstore, Little Rock, Arkansas
2x44', woodblock print, collage
Paper Hearts Bookstore, Little Rock, Arkansas
Commissioned by Paper Hearts Bookstore in Little Rock, Arkansas, Paper Hearts is a handprinted 2x44' woodblock print and collage designed in collaboration with the Paper Hearts community. We initially invited bookstore community members to write down what brings them joy. With this list, I designed an image to honor paper that chronicled the evolution books, illustrating shared moments together and culminating in acts of resistance from music making, to protests, and cooking meals. After a year in production, we held an opening in January 2024 to celebrate the Paper Hearts print.
Steam Powered, 2024
Soil Fictions Catalogue, Belvedere 21 Museum, Vienna, Austria
Angelika Loderer and Layet Johnson
Soil Fictions Catalogue, Belvedere 21 Museum, Vienna, Austria
Angelika Loderer and Layet Johnson
Muralists, 2024
Mural, Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, Arkansas
Mural, Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, Arkansas
DJ Todd-O-Phonic Todd Activity Book Page, 2023
WFMU Radio, East Orange, New Jersey
WFMU Radio, East Orange, New Jersey
Art x 3 Mural, 2023
Mural, Art & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Mural, Art & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Tablework, 2022-2023
Mural, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Little Rock, Arkansas
Mural, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Little Rock, Arkansas
Pizza Therapy, 2022
comic book, 24 pages
Dan Gold & Layet Johnson
comic book, 24 pages
Dan Gold & Layet Johnson
Kenneth Key (Observation), 2019, digital prints, dimensions variable, tape
Compassion Works for All: Prison Portrait Project, New Deal Gallery, Little Rock, Arkansas
Compassion Works for All: Prison Portrait Project, New Deal Gallery, Little Rock, Arkansas
For this invitational group show, I installed eight copies of my black-and-white drawing of prison inmate Kenneth Key around the gallery. A dot at the center of the gallery floor represented the single guard tower, at Stateville Correctional Center, a panopticon, where Mr. Key is serving life in prison. Each drawing was scaled to reflect the size of his head as viewed by the prison guard from 78 feet away.
River Trail, 2021
Mural, Shift Modern Cyclery, Little Rock, Arkansas
Mural, Shift Modern Cyclery, Little Rock, Arkansas
Confidence, 202o
comic book, 28 pages
comic book, 28 pages
Sick Day, 202o
comic book, 44 pages
comic book, 44 pages
Mr. Plywood is Vegan, 2018
8x8', plywood, enamel paint
Utopian Visions Art Fair, Portland, Oregon
8x8', plywood, enamel paint
Utopian Visions Art Fair, Portland, Oregon
Responding to the mission of the Utopian Visions Art Fair, to present projects that work towards possible, alternative futures, Mr. Plywood is Vegan recreates the Mr. Plywood hardware store sign across the street from the art fair itself, in the Portland neighborhood of Montavilla. Made with plywood from the hardware store, and enamel sign paint, and positioned on the fair's roof, the work suggests immediate sustainable futures through appropriation, humor, and graphic design.
In an effort to create a self-sustaining system, the budget for exhibition production was spent entirely on raw firewood. During his short-term residency in Vienna, Layet Johnson chopped about a metric tonne of apricot firewood on site. The firewood was used to heat the stove in the bar room, allowing the gallerists to lower the space’s operating costs during the winter. There were then gatherings, screenings and poetry readings held during this time and firewood was sold to neighbors in a temporary garage-sale style wood shop. In addition to the firewood were a cast resin bird sculpture by Johnson filled partially with regional apricot schnapps and a short comic book, Mystery Bird, drawn during his residency in a neighboring cafe.
