Scott Johnson & Ginger Conroy

Tea For Two
The joys and jeers of sharing your painting
studio.

an interview with Scott Johnson and Ginger Conroy
written by: David Downs
photography by: David Downs

Scott Johnson is a successful painter living in Chicago, Illinois. His work has been seen in galleries
across the country, such as Tinlark in L.A., Gillock Gallery in Chicago, Hotcakes Gallery in
Milwaukee, and the Bridge Art Fair in Florida and London just to name a few. He has also been
widely published, appearing in New American Paintings twice in his career, as well as other
publications. Recently, he moved his studio a few blocks north from it's original location in
Edgewater to Rogers Park with fellow painter, Ginger Conroy. Ginger, originally from a small town
near Seattle, is a prolific painter currently living on Chicago's north side. Her collection of work is
bright and entertaining and even a little unnerving at times. Her thoughtful pieces represent a
unique and fresh take on portraiture. Ginger's work has been seen throughout Seattle, London, and
Chicago.
Scott and Ginger warmly welcomed me into their shared studio for a cup of tea and this interview
about co-inhabiting a work space together.

DD How long have you both been together?
GC We've been together since May 8th.
SJ Yeah, May of 2007, so that's about three-quarters of a year.

DD Where did you both meet?
GC We met at Goods.
SJ Goods of Evanston.
GC My first day of work.

DD How long have you been sharing a studio space together?
GC We've been sharing a studio space since about May.
SJ Yeah, May or June exactly...
GC Middle of May.

DD How has sharing a work space influenced your work?
GC Well, Scott's been pushing me to work smaller, and that's helped a lot. I've been getting a lot
more work done, and I haven't been dragging out huge paintings. I pay more attention to the size
now.
SJ Yeah, I find that there was a time when I was working larger and it's good to all of a sudden kind
of re-focus and pull back and work on smaller work. I mean, it works out for practical reasons too,
because now we're both in here and it's cozy. It's not too small, it's an ok size for working on small
pieces. And it just so happens, a show I have coming up at Flat File (Chicago), they just want
small pieces, so that works out really well. Ginger enjoyed doing smaller pieces and she's getting
a lot done. We're both really prolific right now.
GC The only thing I might notice about Scott's work changing, and I don't want to be
presumptuous, but he might be using wilder color.
SJ Yeah, there's a lot of color, and a variety of color. I've been getting a little more detailed, too.

DD What are the challenges of working so close together?
GC Ooh, sometimes I'm bombing, really sucking bad, and he will come by. There's no way to
really hide a bad painting. It's sort of like getting caught scratching your ass. (laughs) You know,
it's kind of embarrassing, and there's no way to lie about it.
SJ Well that's the thing about painting, your painting will almost always be in an unfinished state,
and it looks like crap. You can kind of see where it's going, or at least you know it's going to get
better, but you do feel sort of self-conscious to have another person see it in this sort of state. And
sometimes I like to just sit and look at the piece and zone out for about an hour and not do
anything. I feel really self-conscious about that sometimes. Ginger might look over and say, "What
are you doing?"
GC You know, I've never given that a second thought. It's also a good thing that we're right next to
each other, because sometimes we'll be spacing out, and I'll come up behind him. I'll make tea,
we'll have tea breaks, or I'll come up behind him and suggest that it might be done. That's
happened a couple of times.
SJ Yeah, she has suggested... she'll say I should stop right there, and she's right! I stop right
there. You know. I think I've done that on one or two of (Ginger's) paintings, too.
GC Yeah, I was struggling on this one painting that was based on a dream, and it was a portrait,
and... it was really starting to blow. So I kept fussing and fussing. It looked good, but it didn't look
like the woman. Then I made it look like the woman, but the cheek bones were disproportionate,
and huge. Then I wiped the whole thing off. I thought I had completely wiped her off, but we were
having tea and I was on the other side of the couch, and I realized she was still there. It was kind of
spooky.
SJ Yeah, just the shadow was there, and she thought she had to start over again, and all of a
sudden...
GC We both realized it was done.
SJ I think you said it first. I looked at her, and we both said, "Oh my God!" at the same time and
we both agreed, it was done.

DD That's cool. It was almost like an accident.
GC Yeah, we've had a lot of happy accidents.

DD Do you ever collaborate on paintings?
SJ Not yet, but we plan to. We were even talking a little bit today about maybe collaborating on
something. Like, I would do some kind of architecture thing and she would do a few figures in the
foreground.

DD So, I also had some questions for both of you individually about your work. Scott, what has
been the motivation behind your work?
SJ It feels like I'm slowly pulling the camera back and looking at things from a distance. I can only
really compare it to like, maybe five years ago, I was doing realistic paintings based on pictures of
people, most people I didn't know. I would paint their portrait anonymously, I guess. The people out
of the corner of the frame... and I would focus on a few people here and there
GC Gorilla portraiture...
SJ Gorilla portraiture, that's really good. I wish I would have thought of that five years ago. So, I'm
not really doing those anymore. I'm kind of doing abstract scenes of people in uniform, or things
that are recognizable, but thrown into a different context. I like working in detail, that's also kind of
loose. I also like having a little edge to it, being a recognizable image. Say like, maybe a group of
swat team members in a ring with their sticks pointing outwards. It almost looks like a crown of
thorns.
GC He wants to paint like Thelonious Monk sounds.
SJ (laughs) I told her that once. Yeah, I want to keep the mistakes in there. I want it to be, where
it's just barely hanging in there. Like Thelonious Monk does, you know, he does this melody line,
and you know exactly what he's doing but he's throwing all these left curve balls in there. And he's
doing it so effortlessly. It's like he's digging up sand in a sandbox and throwing it over his shoulder
instead of playing a piano, and it's wonderful. I almost want to paint in that way. I wouldn't say he's
a direct influence of mine, but it's somewhat that kind of approach. I want it to be kind of "jazzy", I
guess.

DD And, Ginger...
GC I had been painting with this idea of getting into grad
school. So I had this looming, "twenty things that look the
same" thought in my mind for several months. Then in 2006 I
started painting portraits where... What got me started... The
first one, I painted myself after watching a documentary on a
parasitic twin in Egypt There was a regular twin, and there
was another twin that had a parasitic third twin that was fully
sentient, and was coming out the top of her head like a
stack. But she didn't have enough organs to sustain life on
her own, so she was feeding off the organs of her twin. She
was conscious, she had her own sleep patterns, and she
would cry, she had her own emotions, but they knew she
wasn't a viable person. So, they stopped relating to her, and
she went brain dead after ten months, and they separated
her. So I thought... what if they... I was pissed. I wished they
hadn't let her go like that. I mean, she had been a person. I
thought, what if it was me? What if I just decided to keep my
strangeness? So I painted myself at the age I was, looking
the way I did but with a parasitic twin. So that was the first
one, and (now) I've been painting freaks for awhile. I only
paint people I know for this series. I've done some
commission work, on the side, but it's fairly tame. So now
I've been painting some really light freaks. My friend helped
me come up with the term "hard freaks" and "soft freaks".
There are hard freaks which are most definitely freak show
freaks...

DD Like the portrait of the man with the little man growing
out of his stomach?
GC That's Lenny and little Lenny. Now I'm even just letting
myself do anything that comes out of my brain, because it's
enjoyable, and why not? So, I started painting things like a
peanut as a portrait. I guess I'm enjoying saying yes to all of
these ideas.
SJ You see artists out there that do wildly different subjects,
but you can still tell it's them, there personality still shines
through.
GC I finally figured out how I paint, how I put it down. So that
stays the same.

Scott Johnson will be showing work at Flat File Gallery later
this year. Ginger Conroy will be showing this year at Connie
Gillock Gallery in Evanston and in a group show with Scott in
Milwaukee. Details and reception times are soon to come.