Indianapolis-based painter Johnson Simon channels the grace of dance and athletics into bold, movement-driven expressionist canvases, built with oil paint stick, brushes, and his own hands, a practice shaped by his lived experience with cerebral palsy and the freedom he finds in motion.

• An expressionistic practice built on oil paint stick, brushes, and hands-on fingerwork that manipulates the paint itself, alongside bright color and thick, sweeping linework that renders the body in motion.
• Movement is both his subject and his method, drawn from dance, athletics, his own recorded gestures, and even the muscle spasms of his cerebral palsy.
• Through ArtLifting, his work has reached a global audience, sharpening his own sense of value as a working artist.

Johnson Simon paints in motion. Working with oil paint stick and brush, he builds his canvases from broad, sweeping gestures and thick linework, laying down bright, saturated color to capture the body mid-movement: a dancer's turn, a runner's stride, the arc of a jump. He often goes back into the oil paint stick's marks with his fingers, working and reshaping them by hand, a way of putting his own motion directly into the paint. His style is expressionistic: less concerned with rendering a figure exactly than with transferring the feeling of movement itself onto the surface.

"Art is my movement."

That focus on the body didn't start in an art class. It started in physical therapy. Johnson was diagnosed at birth with cerebral palsy and was introduced to art in the first grade as a way to practice new movements and build coordination. What began as therapy became a lasting practice, one he carried through the rest of his childhood.

Johnson was born in Turks and Caicos and came to the United States as a child, growing up in Florida before attending Western Michigan University to study art. It was there, at a dance recital, that his work found its defining subject. He became, in his words, a student of how the body moves and emotes, studying dancers and athletes, and even recording his own movements to understand his own rhythms. That research shows up directly in the paintings: broad color and sweeping brushwork standing in for the grace of a dancer or the drive of an athlete in motion.

Movement carries a personal weight for Johnson beyond subject matter. His muscle movements can be uncontrollable, so painting has become the way he moves freely, dancing across the canvas without interruption. He's folded that same physical reality directly into his process, too: rather than fighting the muscle spasms, he lets them become part of the mark-making, shaping the brushwork in ways he couldn't plan.

Johnson graduated with honors from Western Michigan University and went on to earn his Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Indiana University. It's an educational path he counts among his proudest accomplishments, especially given a public school experience that included bullying and placement in special education classes despite having no cognitive disability. He's since become a teaching artist at a community organization serving people with physical and developmental disabilities, working alongside his own growing art career.

"Anything I can do to help the future generation be creative, that's my passion. I want to have an open space where I can help my community."

What makes your creative process uniquely yours?

Because of my physical disability, I have physical limitations. I use my art as my movement to express the freedom of physical movement I would like to be experiencing.

What life experiences most deeply influence your work?

My day-to-day challenges influence my work most, giving me both fuel for my creativity and impacting the ways I can express myself.

How has sharing your work through ArtLifting changed your art or your life?

ArtLifting has given me a bigger audience and a larger platform to reach people around the world with my work. ArtLifting has provided a consistent way to earn money and has helped me realize the value of both my work and myself as an artist, helping me see the impact of my work in different communities. 

What do you hope stays with someone after they experience your work?

I would want the feeling of freedom to stay with people after seeing my work. Creating my artwork gives me a sense of freedom, and I want that feeling to allow others to feel the same way as they look at my artwork, enabling them to bring that feeling of freedom to whatever challenges they are facing in their own lives. 

Johnson's ambitions extend past the studio. He's especially drawn to commission work, where he transforms a client's photo into a living, moving piece using his signature brushwork. He's also drawn to speaking engagements, where he shares his story directly with audiences. Both feed into a larger goal: building a lasting career in art while advocating for others with disabilities, using his own experience with bullying and misplacement in special education as motivation to speak on resilience and perseverance rather than letting it define him.

Through ArtLifting, Johnson's paintings have made their way into corporate and public spaces well beyond Indianapolis, carrying his advocacy for other artists with disabilities into communities across the country. That same reach has also given him a steady way to earn from his own art as a professional.

Follow Johnson’s creative journey on Instagram.