Paul Johns

Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1951

Crutch (Purple Crutch)

  • 1980
  • Photograph
  • Purchased, 1982
  • 79 x 78mm
  • 88/161

Using a South Island slang term for crotch, the more subtle ‘crutch’, Paul Johns combines an interest in subversive subject matter with an eye for elegant execution in these Polaroid photographs from 1980. Directing his lens, and our gaze, into spaces that are uncomfortably personal, Paul explores how images that can be read formally as studies in shape, colour and texture also have the power to provoke.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )

Exhibition History

earlier labels about this work
  • Once described as ‘a maximalist with minimalist tendencies’, Paul Johns combines an interest in subversive subject matter with an eye for elegant execution in these Polaroid photographs from 1980. Directing his lens, and our gaze, into spaces that are uncomfortably personal, Johns explores how images that can be read formally as studies in shape, colour and texture also have the power to provoke.

    (Brought to light, November 2009)