MANKATO — Images as striking as in Cam Johnson’s paintings almost demand interpretation.

People stop, raise an eyebrow at the elongated limbs on the figures and the disquieting color scheme and wonder what Johnson’s trying to say.

Johnson will be of little help here. He has no agenda, and he has no intention of dissecting a painting and pointing out what each image is supposed to be or represent. Although he does include contorted or twisted figures in most of his work and explains their purpose is to redefine the way people look at the human form. Other than that, he encourages people to see what they want to see.

Think of it like jazz, said his friend John Garber. Unlike the standard three verses, chorus and bridge of a pop song, jazz uses blue notes, polyrhythms, syncopation and blends different styles. It’s unexpected and erratic, and recordings often are appreciated more upon repeated plays as the listener hears something new each time and begins to understand what seemed like madness at first.

“Cameron’s imagery is like that,” said Garber, a potter who majored in art alongside Johnson at Minnesota State University. “The weird, long, angular movement is like a conveyance of motion or dancing. They’re visually compelling.”

Johnson is a musician, too, but the two passions don’t overlap. He decided to go the scholastic route with art, learning to paint in college 12 years ago, and make music more of an outlet.

“My art’s more meditative,” he said.

It’s also completely open to interpretation, although he will suggest to people that, perhaps, their first impressions aren’t correct.

“At first they think they’re dark, but I’ve had roommates who, after a while, they say they couldn’t believe they used to think it was dark,” he said. “It becomes a different kind of beauty.”

Think of it like a family holiday get-together when you were a kid, Garber said. The grown-ups are all drinking and talking among themselves, and the kids are on a separate plain, not fully understanding what the adults are talking about.

Viewing Johnson’s paintings can have that sort of distorted view to them, as if you’re seeing them through a fisheye lens.

“They have a sort of dystopian or misfit-type feel to them,” Garber said.

The best way to view one of Johnson’s paintings is to think of it like a captured moment and allow yourself to fill in the story. But just when you think you’ve got one figured out — you’re sure what you’re seeing in the right-hand corner is part of a skull, and surely that’s a silhouette of a tree — he makes you open your mind again.

“I don’t really see that myself,” he’ll say.



What

Paintings by Cam Johnson

Where

Raydiance Salon

When

Runs through July 21. For more information, call 388-8811 or visit www.artbycam.com.