Measuring the Prairie with a Paintbrush

A Grand Island native, painter Doug Johnson creates beautiful landscapes out of simple geometric forms. 

Johnson is largely self taught. He attended Kearney State College (now the University of Nebraska at Kearney) for a brief time, and while he didn’t graduate he excelled in his art courses. 

He has worked for Grand Island Public Schools in various capacities for more than a decade now. Currently he serves as a janitor in an elementary school. He is tenacious about keeping his routine. Other than naturally being a creature of habit, sticking to a well-manicured schedule allows him to maximize his time in the studio. He was even a bit tentative about meeting for a photograph and short interview in Railside’s Studio K Art Gallery, where you can purchase his paintings, for fear of it breaking up his day and keeping him out of the studio. 

His geometric impressionism, so to speak, is a style he’s cultivated for the past 20 years. The paintings are quite painstaking, requiring a lot of hours to execute. The shapes have become smaller as he has developed the style, allowing for more detail. The geometry harkens back to his love of the American Southwest, although most of his subject matter is drawn from Nebraska cornfields and prairies.