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At Charles Johnson Gallery, we are dedicated to showcasing contemporary art that inspires and challenges. Our art gallery features unique artworks that push the boundaries of creativity and expression.
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Check out “WrongSide Out” -Madness misdiagnosed By: Benton Savage cover illustration by: Charles Johnson For book cover illustrations contact the gallery at: 850-797-8939 or by email at: Spectrumism@icloud.com
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Welcome to Charles Johnson Gallery Art Gallery
Our gallery showcases a diverse collection of contemporary and traditional artwork from around the world. We are committed to providing a platform for emerging artists to showcase their work and for art enthusiasts to discover new and exciting pieces. Our collection includes paintings, sculptures, and mixed media art.
What Is Spectrumism?
Spectrumism is not merely an art style, but a complete way of seeing. Founded in 1999 in Northwest Florida by artists Charles Johnson and Gabriel Lewis, the movement demands that artists engage with the full visible color spectrum — ROYGBIV — rather than a limited or emotionally selective palette.
At its core, Spectrumism operates on three fundamental principles. First, the artist must utilize the entire spectral range to construct form, light, and texture. Second, every work should explore multiple, often contrasting viewpoints simultaneously. Third, the artist seeks to reveal hidden connections between subjects that, at first glance, appear unrelated.
This third principle is perhaps the most radical. While many historical movements focused on how things look, Spectrumism is deeply concerned with what things actually are — the full spectrum of light they both reflect and absorb. When painting a building, for instance, the Spectrumist does not simply render the colors the eye sees, but also incorporates the wavelengths of light the structure absorbs. This creates a visual experience where the object feels almost alive with its complete spectral identity.
This philosophy extends far beyond technique. Spectrumism challenges the viewer to move past singular perception and embrace a more complete way of understanding reality. In this way, the movement serves as both an artistic practice and a form of visual philosophy — teaching both creator and viewer to see more than what is immediately apparent.
Non-Color-Centric Spectrumism
Non-Color-Centric Spectrumism expands the movement beyond color theory entirely. Here, the term “spectrum” refers to a group of individual elements — objects, concepts, or subjects — that are unique unto themselves yet share a common thread. This approach explores subject matter through a wide range of seemingly unrelated ideas, images, or themes that, when viewed together, reveal deeper connections and subconscious truths. Artists working in this mode often use autonomous, stream-of-consciousness poetry or visual metaphors to bring these hidden relationships to light.
The ROYGBIV Mandate
The technical cornerstone of Spectrumism remains its requirement to work with all six primary and secondary colors of the visible spectrum — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. This is not a suggestion but a foundational rule. An artwork missing any of these core colors cannot, by definition, be considered Spectrumist.
This mandate serves several purposes. Practically, it forces the artist to solve complex color problems they might otherwise avoid. Philosophically, it acts as a constant reminder that completeness matters. The artist cannot take shortcuts. Every hue must earn its place in the composition.
This approach to color has produced a distinctive visual signature. Spectrumist works often appear to glow with an inner light, the result of carefully balanced spectral relationships. Even when depicting dark or somber subjects, these paintings maintain a particular vibrancy that comes from the presence of the full spectrum.
Spectrumism as Visual Philosophy
What makes Spectrumism particularly compelling is that it functions on multiple levels simultaneously. On the surface, it is a technical approach to color and form. At a deeper level, it becomes a method for expanding human perception. The movement argues that most people see only fragments of reality — the colors an object reflects under specific lighting conditions. Spectrumism insists on seeing the whole.
This philosophy naturally extends beyond painting. Spectrumist principles have begun influencing architectural color theory, product design, and even approaches to music composition, where the idea of working with a complete “spectrum” of tones and textures is being explored.
The movement’s emphasis on revealing hidden connections also carries psychological weight. By training both artist and viewer to see beyond surface appearances, Spectrumism becomes a form of visual mindfulness — a practice that encourages fuller, more complete attention to the world around us.
The Living Nature of the Movement
Unlike many historical art movements that have become frozen in time, Spectrumism remains actively evolving. New artists continue to join and expand its principles. The movement has maintained its core requirements while allowing for significant creative interpretation.
This balance between structure and freedom has proven remarkably sustainable. The requirement to work with the full spectrum provides clear boundaries, while the philosophical openness gives artists room to explore deeply personal themes within those boundaries.
The movement’s endurance comes in part from its flexibility. While the ROYGBIV requirement remains non-negotiable in color-centric work, artists are free to interpret the deeper philosophical principles in deeply personal ways. Some explore the metaphysical nature of light, others focus on psychological revelation, and some push the boundaries into installation and multimedia work while maintaining the movement’s core values.
This living quality is essential to Spectrumism’s identity. The founders never intended to create a rigid doctrine, but rather to establish a framework through which artists could pursue a more complete vision of reality. As new generations of artists discover the movement, they bring their own experiences, cultural perspectives, and technical innovations, ensuring that Spectrumism continues to evolve while remaining true to its foundational principles.
In many ways, Spectrumism arrived at exactly the right moment in art history. As the 20th century came to a close, many artists felt exhausted by movements that had increasingly moved away from beauty, technical mastery, and visual pleasure. Spectrumism offered a return to these values without sacrificing intellectual rigor. It proved that one could create visually stunning work while still engaging with complex ideas about perception, consciousness, and the nature of reality itself.
The movement also speaks to our current cultural moment, where many people feel overwhelmed by fragmented information and competing viewpoints. In an age of short attention spans and surface-level engagement, Spectrumism offers the opposite: an invitation to see more completely, to slow down, and to discover the hidden connections that exist all around us.
The Spiritual and Metaphysical Foundations
At its deepest level, Spectrumism is as much a spiritual practice as it is an artistic one. Light, in the Spectrumist view, is not merely a physical phenomenon — it is the fundamental creative force of the universe. By working with the complete visible spectrum, the artist is literally working with the building blocks of creation itself.
Many Spectrumist artists describe a profound shift in consciousness that occurs when they commit to using the full ROYGBIV range. The discipline required to balance all six colors creates a state of heightened awareness, where the artist begins to perceive subtle energy patterns and connections that normally remain invisible. This experience often leads practitioners to view Spectrumism as a form of active meditation.
The metaphysical dimension becomes especially clear in the treatment of absorbed versus reflected light. Just as every physical object absorbs certain wavelengths while reflecting others, humans too absorb experiences while only showing limited aspects of themselves. Spectrumism becomes a metaphor for wholeness — the integration of all aspects of being, both seen and unseen.
Origins and Early Development
Spectrumism was born in the late 1990s in Northwest Florida, specifically in the Fort Walton Beach area. Charles Johnson and Gabriel Lewis, both working artists frustrated with the limitations of existing movements, began experimenting with radical color theories that would eventually become the foundation of the movement.
What started as informal studio conversations gradually evolved into a formal philosophy. The two artists made a decisive commitment: they would only create work that honored the full spectrum of visible light. This seemingly simple rule became the strict foundation upon which everything else was built.
The early years were challenging. The art world at the time was heavily focused on conceptual and minimalist approaches. Spectrumism’s unapologetic embrace of beauty, technical mastery, and vibrant color was seen by some as regressive. Yet this very resistance helped solidify the movement’s identity and attracted artists who were tired of art that felt disconnected from visual pleasure.
How Spectrumism Works in Practice
The actual working process of a Spectrumist artist is both rigorous and liberating. A typical painting begins with a careful analysis of the subject’s complete spectral properties — not just what color it appears, but which colors it absorbs. The artist then maps out how to incorporate all six key colors into the composition in a way that feels natural rather than forced.
Many artists work in thin glazes, slowly building up luminous layers of color. This technique allows each hue to remain visible while interacting with the others, creating the signature glowing quality found in mature Spectrumist works. The process can be slow and methodical, sometimes taking weeks or months for a single piece.
The real challenge lies in making the mandatory colors feel inevitable rather than obligatory. This is where true mastery reveals itself — when a painting contains every color in the spectrum yet feels completely natural to the viewer.
Psychological and Emotional Impact
Spectrumist works have a measurable effect on those who spend time with them. The full-spectrum approach creates a visual field that seems to energize the viewer rather than deplete them. Many report feeling more awake, more present, and strangely optimistic after viewing Spectrumist paintings.
This psychological impact likely stems from the movement’s balance of stimulation and harmony. The presence of all six colors provides rich visual stimulation, while the careful relationships between those colors create an underlying sense of order and completeness that feels deeply satisfying to the human nervous system.
For the artists themselves, the practice often becomes transformative. The constant requirement to see more completely tends to bleed into everyday life. Practitioners frequently report becoming more observant, more open-minded, and more sensitive to subtle patterns and connections in the world around them.
Distinguishing Spectrumism from Other Color Movements
While Spectrumism shares surface similarities with earlier color-focused movements, it is fundamentally different. Unlike Fauvism, which used unnatural color for emotional expression, Spectrumism’s use of color is not primarily expressive but perceptual and philosophical. The Fauves asked “How do I feel?” Spectrumism asks “What is actually here?”
Compared to Orphism’s more abstract, musical approach to color, Spectrumism remains committed to representation while still achieving luminous, almost transcendent effects. And while Color Field painting explored large areas of pure color, Spectrumism integrates the full spectrum within complex, detailed compositions.
This combination of technical discipline, philosophical depth, and visual accessibility gives Spectrumism a unique position in contemporary art — one that continues to attract new practitioners drawn to both its visual beauty and its deeper promise of expanded perception.
The Origins of Spectrumism
The seeds of Spectrumism were planted in 1995 in Tallinn, Estonia. While watching a sunset with an unusually bright red sun — possibly intensified by atmospheric pollution — I noticed something striking: that same red light reflected consistently across buildings, people, and the entire horizon. The color wasn’t isolated; it touched everything in the scene.
Two years later, in 1997, while visiting Manarola in Italy’s Cinque Terre, I observed a row of colorful buildings — one yellow, one green, one blue, one with a reddish hue. This experience merged with the earlier one in Estonia and sparked a deeper question: What would it look like if you could see all the colors, all the time, in everything you looked at? That, I realized, must be how God sees the world.
Upon returning from Italy, I painted my first Spectrumist work, The Leaning Town of Pisa. In this painting, the buildings of Pisa lean at 80 and 100 degrees, while the tower itself stands perfectly vertical at 90 degrees — reflecting how the tower appears straight when viewed from certain angles, yet the surrounding town appears tilted. Every building was rendered using the full ROYGBIV spectrum throughout the composition.
In 1998, while at Florida State University in Tallahassee, I coined the term “Spectrumism.” I sat with the idea for several months before writing a short essay in 1999 that explained the philosophy, its personal origins, influences, and where I believed it could go. I made five copies of this essay and distributed them.
One copy reached an illustrator at the Northwest Florida Daily News, who passed it to the editor. The paper then sent a reporter to cover the emerging idea. By the time the reporter arrived, I had already begun collaborating closely with Gabriel Lewis.
I had met Gabe around late 1998 or early 1999. He was studying at the University of West Florida and working at a cookie store in the mall. A gifted musician, he had been the state of Florida fiddle champion two years in a row at ages 17 and 18. We quickly discovered a strong artistic kinship and began working intensely together on paintings and the development of Spectrumism. Gabe was also doing innovative work in analog photography using double and triple exposures on large-format negatives and emulsion papers.
The Northwest Florida Daily News article became the first public introduction of Spectrumism, and the movement began to take root from there.
“See Through Color” — The Core Philosophy
One of the most important and frequently used phrases in Spectrumism is “see through color.” This concept, central to the movement, means moving beyond the surface color an object reflects and instead revealing the complete spectrum of light it both reflects and absorbs.
To “see through color” is to understand that every object contains far more than what the eye initially perceives. A red barn, for example, is not simply red. In Spectrumism, the artist also reveals the blues, greens, and violets the barn has absorbed. This creates a much richer and more truthful representation of the object’s full spectral reality.
Rendering Form with the Full Spectrum
This philosophy is put into practice through a deliberate and systematic approach to rendering light and form. The lighter, warmer colors — green, red, and yellow — are primarily used to describe areas struck by light. These colors naturally advance and carry higher visual energy. In contrast, purple, blue, and orange are used to establish the shadow sides and cooler areas of the form, creating a natural spectral opposition that gives the painting both structure and depth.
The midtones are achieved not through palette mixing, but through the careful layering of complementary colors directly on the canvas. By glazing one color over its complement — such as layering violet over yellow or orange over blue — rich, vibrating midtones are created. Each successive glaze allows the underlying colors to remain partially visible, producing an optical mixing effect that makes the painting appear to glow from within.
This technique of layering complementary colors while maintaining the full ROYGBIV spectrum is one of the technical hallmarks of Spectrumism. It allows the artist to render form with remarkable luminosity and movement. Even static subjects gain a sense of inner energy and dimension that cannot be achieved through conventional color mixing. The result is paintings that feel alive — as though light itself is moving through and within the forms rather than merely falling upon them.
“Seeing through color” is therefore both a technical discipline and a philosophical commitment — a way of painting that seeks to capture the complete, hidden nature of light and reality itself.
Rendering Form with the Full Spectrum
One of the most practical and distinctive aspects of Spectrumism is its systematic approach to rendering form and light using the full ROYGBIV spectrum.
In this method, lighter, warmer colors — green, red, and yellow — are primarily used to describe light sources and illuminated areas. These colors naturally carry more visual energy and brightness, making them ideal for conveying where light strikes an object. Conversely, purple, blue, and orange are used to establish the shadow sides and cooler recesses of forms. This creates a natural spectral opposition that gives the painting both structural clarity and luminous depth.
The true sophistication of Spectrumism emerges in the creation of midtones. Rather than mixing colors on the palette to create neutral tones, the artist layers complementary colors directly on the canvas. By glazing a complement over an existing color — for example, layering violet over yellow, or orange over blue — the artist produces rich, vibrating midtones that feel alive rather than flat.
This layering technique is fundamental to the movement. Each additional glaze allows previously applied colors to remain visible while modifying them, creating an optical mixing effect. The result is a painting that appears to glow from within, as light seems to pass through multiple transparent layers of color. This method not only produces more dynamic and luminous surfaces, but it also maintains the integrity of the full spectrum throughout the entire composition.
Contrasting Viewpoints Within a Single Work
Spectrumism distinguishes itself from most traditional approaches by deliberately incorporating multiple contrasting viewpoints within the same painting. Rather than showing a single emotional or perceptual lens, each work often contains several competing perspectives simultaneously.
An artist might present both the biological and emotional reality of a subject at the same time. One area of the painting may emphasize the physical and scientific nature of an object, while another reveals its emotional or spiritual dimension. These contrasting viewpoints exist in deliberate tension, creating a richer and more complex experience for the viewer.
This approach mirrors how human consciousness actually works. We rarely experience anything through just one filter — we see something as both beautiful and tragic, both scientific and poetic, both familiar and mysterious. Spectrumism seeks to capture this multiplicity of experience rather than simplifying it.
The technical challenge is significant. The artist must weave these different perceptual layers together using the full spectral palette so they feel unified rather than chaotic. When successful, the painting offers the viewer multiple valid ways of seeing the same subject, each revealing something the others cannot.
The Metaphysics of Trapped Light
At the heart of Spectrumism lies a profound metaphysical idea: that absorbed colors still contain trapped light and energy. When an object absorbs a wavelength rather than reflecting it, that light is not lost — it is held within the material itself. Spectrumism proposes that this hidden light remains as latent energy, waiting to be revealed through art.
This understanding completely changes how one sees the world. A black surface is no longer viewed as the absence of color, but rather as something saturated with stored light. A deep red rose, for instance, appears red because it reflects primarily that wavelength, but it has absorbed all the others — blues, greens, yellows, and violets. To the Spectrumist, that rose is not simply red. It is carrying an entire universe of hidden light within it.
The artist’s role then becomes almost priestly — to liberate this trapped light and make it visible. By deliberately painting the absorbed colors alongside the reflected ones, the Spectrumist is not inventing color for aesthetic effect. They are revealing what is already present, simply unseen by normal perception.
This concept gives Spectrumism a deeply spiritual character. Light is understood as the fundamental creative force of existence. When an artist “sees through color,” they are participating in a sacred act: making visible the complete energetic reality of creation. Every object, no matter how ordinary, becomes a vessel of divine light.
Charles Johnson has often described this experience as a form of visual revelation. The more completely one learns to see through color, the more one begins to perceive the living energy present in all things — from a simple stone to the walls of a building to the human form itself. What appears solid and static is revealed as dynamic and luminous when viewed through the full spectrum.
This metaphysical foundation is what separates Spectrumism from being merely a technical color exercise. It transforms the movement into a genuine philosophical and spiritual practice — one that uses paint as a vehicle to reveal hidden truth about the nature of light, matter, and perception.
Creating Movement in Static Objects
One of the most fascinating achievements of Spectrumism is its unique ability to infuse static subjects with a powerful sense of movement and living energy. This quality sets the movement apart from nearly every other approach to painting still life, architecture, or inanimate objects.
In traditional realistic painting, a building is a building — solid, heavy, and motionless. In Spectrumism, that same building can appear to pulse, breathe, and flow with inner light. This visual dynamism is created through the sophisticated orchestration of the full ROYGBIV spectrum and the strategic use of spectral tension.
When the six spectral colors are carefully balanced and placed in specific relationships to one another, they generate a subtle but constant visual vibration. Complementary colors activate each other. Warm colors advance while cool colors recede. Layered glazes allow multiple colors to remain visible simultaneously, creating optical mixing that makes the surface of the painting appear to shimmer and shift as the viewer’s eye moves across it.
This creates a paradox that lies at the heart of Spectrumism’s power: the more faithfully the artist uses the complete spectrum, the more alive even the most rigid, static objects become. A stone wall rendered in full Spectrumism can feel more energetic than a portrait painted with conventional colors. A simple wooden table can appear to have a quiet pulse running through it. The object retains its correct form and structure, yet it feels filled with circulating light and energy.
This effect is particularly powerful in architectural paintings. Buildings painted using only ROYGBIV often appear almost weightless — as though they are constructed more of light than of stone or brick. The walls seem to glow from within. The structure feels less like a static monument and more like a living organism of color and light.
This quality of movement emerges not from distorting the subject, but from revealing its complete spectral reality. By showing both the colors an object reflects and the colors it absorbs, the artist unlocks a hidden dimension of energy that exists within all matter. What appears solid and still to normal perception is revealed to be dynamic and luminous when seen through the full spectrum.
It is this ability to make the inanimate come alive that draws many artists back to Spectrumism again and again. It offers a way to paint the physical world not as it merely appears, but as it truly is — filled with flowing, radiant energy.
Using Gray Scales Within the Spectrum
While Spectrumism is defined by its commitment to the full ROYGBIV spectrum, the movement makes sophisticated use of neutral gray scales alongside these vibrant colors. Rather than treating grays as the absence of color, Spectrumists use them as a strategic counterpoint that actually enhances the intensity of the spectral colors.
Grays serve several important functions in Spectrumist works. They provide visual rest for the eye, allowing the vibrant ROYGBIV colors to appear even more luminous by comparison. They also help establish structure, depth, and form, particularly in complex compositions where too many competing colors could become visually overwhelming.
A powerful example of this approach is the painting The First Day of Spring, created approximately ten years ago. This portrait of a woman is deliberately split in its use of color. The right side of the figure is rendered entirely in black, white, and neutral grays, emphasizing the structural depth and classical form of the subject. As the eye moves across the painting to the left, the figure gradually transforms into full Spectrumism, with the complete ROYGBIV palette emerging where the light source strikes the subject.
This transition beautifully illustrates the philosophy of the movement. The neutral gray scale provides the foundational structure and depth, while the full spectrum reveals the hidden energy, vitality, and inner truth of the person. The contrast between the two approaches creates a striking visual metaphor: the gray represents what is seen on the surface, while the spectrum reveals the living energy and complete nature that exists beneath.
This combination of high-chroma spectral color with neutral grays creates a unique visual tension. The grays do not diminish the spectrum — they amplify it. Through strategic restraint, the artist makes the full spectrum appear even more powerful and alive.
Why ROYGBIV Alone Is Enough
The idea that the six colors of the visible spectrum are completely sufficient to create a fully realized painting is one of Spectrumism’s most radical and liberating principles.
Most artists are trained to believe they must constantly mix colors to match the “real” color of whatever they’re painting. Browns, grays, beiges, and countless subtle variations are considered essential. Spectrumism completely rejects this assumption. The six spectral colors — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet — form a closed, perfect system capable of expressing everything necessary in visual art.
When these colors are used intelligently, they are not only adequate but superior. Because they are pure hues, they create powerful optical effects when placed near or layered over one another. These interactions produce vibrations, luminosity, and depth that mixed colors — which tend to become dull and muddy — simply cannot match. A Spectrumist painting often appears to glow from within, even in darker passages, because the spectral colors continue to interact optically across the surface.
Working exclusively with ROYGBIV also creates a natural harmony across the entire painting. Since every color belongs to the same family (the visible spectrum), they relate to each other in predictable and powerful ways. Complementary relationships are especially strong — violet activates yellow, orange activates blue, red activates green. This creates an underlying visual unity that would be difficult to achieve when mixing dozens of arbitrary colors.
Perhaps most importantly, limiting the palette to these six colors forces the artist to become more inventive and observant. Rather than reaching for a tube of brown or gray when something looks dark, the artist must solve the problem using only spectral colors. This constraint becomes a source of creativity. It pushes the artist to discover unexpected color relationships and more expressive solutions.
This approach also carries a deeper philosophical meaning. By using only the colors present in pure light, the artist is working directly with the fundamental components of visual reality. There is a kind of purity and honesty in this restriction. The artist is saying: “I will show you the world using only the colors that light itself provides.”
Over time, many Spectrumist artists report that working within this limited but infinitely rich system becomes deeply satisfying. Once you truly understand how to render form, light, and atmosphere using only ROYGBIV, returning to conventional color mixing often feels limiting, dull, and unnecessarily complicated.
The six colors of the spectrum are not a restriction. They are a complete and elegant language — fully capable of expressing the full range of human visual and emotional experience.
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