Atom Johnson

Atom Johnson is one of the names under which painter and writer Darrel Spenst creates. He is a character in a series of novels currently being fabricated in conjunction with PAINTSMITHink™ – a business co-founded with Sandra Kolarcik – of which these ATOMscape™ paintings comprise a part.

Born and raised in Bolivia, Darrel is also a citizen of the United States and Canada. He has made his home in all these places at various times in his life, even living in his car for long stretches of travel and research, following the wind and the scent of mystery along the highways and byways of this great continent, exploring the infinite possibilities of paint and prose.

Employing a contemporary version of the ancient technique of fresco by means of marble dust, dry historical earth pigments and a wide range of acrylics, the ATOMscape™ paintings of Atom Johnson represent an abstract iconography transcending religion or denomination. They are internally balanced, visual meditation spaces whose meticulously crafted optical terrain is meant to reflect something spiritual in the nature of the viewer, a sort of Rorschach test of the soul. They are a physical manifestation of Atom’s (and Darrel’s) enchantment with color and texture, surface and narrative.

rough his artwork.