Artists | MAKI Gallery | MAKI

Born in 1979 in Tacoma, WA and currently based in London, Johnny Abrahams constructs his minimalist compositions with bold swathes of color, meticulously executed to produce a striking materiality. The fluid rhythm of his meditative paintings is intermittently disturbed by the occasional void or crevice; the delicate liminal gaps separating distinct geometric forms, whether they be painted shapes or stretched canvases stacked on top of one another, become a point of simultaneous contention and harmony. Abrahams considers these negative spaces—or “secondary images” as he calls them—a key aspect of his continuous pursuit of “an uneasy truce between stability and tension.” The marked tactility of his work, enhanced through the application of dense oil-and-wax paint on naturally porous burlap, humanizes the clinical aspects of hard-edge abstraction by intertwining cerebral concepts with sensory experience.
The artist’s recent solo exhibitions include Sympatheia, Vigo Gallery (London, 2024); Therapy Apple, Vigo Gallery (London, 2023); Will it get some wind for the sails, Sunday-S Gallery (Copenhagen, 2023); Dog’s Dinner, Jack Hanley Gallery (New York, 2023); and Primaries, Romer Young Gallery (San Francisco, 2022). He has shown his work extensively in both solo and group presentations across the globe.