Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia is proud to present Crossroads, a solo exhibition featuring sculptures and works on paper by Leroy Johnson. A self-described outsider artist, Johnson surveys the rhythms of the city of Philadelphia in a range of disciplines: for over seven decades, his virtuosic studio practice has included painting, assemblage sculpture, collage, and ceramics.

These sculptures are tender and unflinching portraits of Johnson’s Philadelphia. Through assemblages of materials sourced from Johnson’s walks throughout the city, he transforms the cityscape into a site of human connection. Made of everything from found plastic to cardboard to clay, and embedded with layers of photographs, painting, portraits, and found objects, Johnson’s sculptures capture the richness of urban life.

Crossroads also features works on paper from Johnson’s participation in the Barnes Foundation Artist-in-Residence program in 2019. Layered with corn husks, paint, caution tape, union and confederate flags, these works draw connections between the Civil War and contemporary racial injustice in the United States.

Philadelphia native Leroy Johnson (b. 1937) is a mixed-media artist whose poetic work reflects his many experiences in the city. Johnson has exhibited widely, with past solo shows at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, Tirza Yalon Kolton Ceramic Gallery (Tel Aviv), Gloucester County College (Sewell, NJ), the Camden County Historical Society, and Grizzly Grizzly (Philadelphia, PA). He has received grants from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Independence Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Johnson received a Masters of Human Services from Lincoln University (1986-88), and was a 2014 Pew Fellow at the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage. He has been a participating/resident artist for several community-based arts projects, including for Ile Ife, The Village of Arts and Humanities, Taller Puertoqueno, and The Church of the Advocate, St. Francis Academy, in Baltimore. He was selected for the Woodmere 77th Juried Exhibition at the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA, in spring 2018; was included in the two-person exhibition “#WE HAVE NO PRESIDENT” (with Sara McEneaney) at Marginal Utility, Philadelphia, PA; was the inaugural resident artist at Art Barn in Amaranth, Amaranth, PA in 2017; and was Artist-in-Residence at the Barnes Foundation’s “Let’s Connect” program in 2019.