Pilar Corrias is pleased to present Opening, a solo exhibition by Helen Johnson. Featuring ten new paintings on canvas that were produced while Johnson undertook training as an art therapist, Opening can be understood as a form of self-portrait of the Melbourne-based artist. Inspired by Lacanian psychoanalytic theories, the works on display together produce distinct affective registers for intimate explorations of love, loss, subjecthood and belonging.

During her years in therapeutic training, the artist’s painting practice has reoriented toward psychoanalytical conceptions of the human body. Drawing upon imagery remembered from her dreams, Johnson’s approach pays debt to Symbolism and its promotion of subjective, poetic description as a gateway to truth. The artist likens the process of making to that of a therapeutic session. The paintings’ subjects become elusive, shifting in meaning, seemingly revealing their own unconscious intentions alongside Johnson’s. Once finished, the large paintings are suspended or hung unstretched and unframed, their frayed edges meeting the environment of the gallery space.