Born in 1961 in Chillicothe, Ohio, Timothy Johnson was deeply influenced by the rolling hills and lush woodlands of his home state. He became interested in art at an early age and experimented with a wide variety of mediums and subject matter, eventually settling on architectural structures and their relationship to the environment.
In 1985, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Ohio State University and began a six year journey through Europe where he studied architecture, classic and impressionistic styles of painting.
In 1991, he returned to the United States and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona where he began assimilating the various elements of European, Midwest and Southwestern influences on his work.
'I don't paint from photographs or reference material. I paint from memories. I'm not trying to create an accurate landscape necessarily; instead I'm trying to create an emotion in the viewer. Hopefully to make them feel the way I did when I used to go exploring outdoors. I'm trying to paint an idealized place where they can escape to when the real world gets to be too stressful, too urban or too boring. Everyone has a memory from their childhood when the sun was warm and the leaves were green and everything was how it should be. I'm trying to locate that place in all of us.'
