Helen Johnson’s ‘Opening’ at Pilar Corrias in London depicts surreal moments of bodily distortion and ablution in beguiling ways. The exhibition is inspired by Johnson’s own art therapy practice and her time spent as a patient in Lacanian psychoanalysis, which ended just before she began this complex body of work. ‘The way Jacques Lacan understands the unconscious, and people’s internal structures and neuroticness was useful to me in a therapeutic way,’ she says. ‘I wanted to take that field of knowledge on and integrate it with art therapy.’
The exhibition evokes the unnerving psychological and bodily intertwinement that runs through Lacanian theory and the dream world. Johnson’s paintings aren’t presented as simply horrific or beautiful, but as pure unconscious material, free from the value judgements of the conscious mind. In one painting near the entrance, a length of faeces is squeezed out of an anus into a giant squiggle. While viewers will quickly recognise what they’re looking at, the intricate detailing and soft palette are undeniably attractive. ‘There’s a repulsion, but the aesthetic draws you in,’ says Johnson.
