Megaphones & Monoliths
Megaphones & Monoliths
work from Don Johnson
Exhibition Dates: Jan 31st, 2026 – Mar 7th, 2026
Opening Reception: Sat, Jan 31st, 2026 5-8pm
Location: O+ Exchange, 334 Wall St, Kingston, NY
Gallery Hours: Thurs-Sat 12-6pm or by appt
O+ is pleased to announce Megaphones & Monoliths, an exhibition of drawings and sculpture by Don Johnson. Johnson is an accomplished artist and longtime resident of High Falls, NY as well as a supporter of O+’s mission to provide health care access to fellow artists since the organization’s inception.
Megaphones & Monoliths includes over a dozen recent drawings, primarily executed in oil based pigment sticks, as well as architectural sculpture of wire, wood and wax, installed in our storefront project space. Johnson’s drawings explore the tenuous balance between order and chaos essential to navigating the challenges of being human. He embraces the absurd while utilizing formal anchors to create worlds that feel familiar despite impossible elements like mountains made of pie or fish tethered to the skyline. The work inspires joy and laughter in its details while a melancholic nostalgia and longing are present throughout, often found in the nods to the mountainous landscapes or coastlines of his youth.
Johnson’s sculptural work in the exhibition, excerpts from older bodies of work, also balance wit with skillful execution but tackle broader social concerns. The wire and wax buildings are created in the likeness of archetypes of capitalism and power—including structures like banks, courthouses, churches — but are, at times, literally transparent or filled with dollar bills, absurdist sound elements, etc. The viewer can see through them in places and are shut out in others by wax or tar-like surfaces that speak to the impenetrable, antiquated, and often arbitrary, social hierarchies they represent.
Together these bodies of work point to a lifelong commitment to artmaking that looks both inward and out. Johnson’s work is critical and open, not taking itself too seriously to play, to search, or to allow the awkward or uncertain in everyday life to express itself in tandem with his informed mark-making. They welcome the viewer into his memories, question what has “value” and encourage us to embrace the strange, silly, simple, or surprising pleasures and peculiarities of just being alive.