I Think, I Draw, I Am is the largest New York solo exhibition by musician and artist Daniel Johnston (1961-2019). Curated by Lee Foster, co-owner of Electric Lady Studios and Curatorial Advisor for the Daniel Johnston Trust, the exhibition reveals the psychological depth and formal inventiveness of Johnston’s comic-inspired drawings. Comprising over 300 drawings, it attests to the abundance of material he made during his restlessly creative life.

Johnston first entered the public eye as a musician in the mid-1980s, after arriving in Austin, Texas, in 1984. Through dogged self-promotion—personally handing out home-recorded tapes, all of which featured his illustrations on their covers—he managed to establish himself within the city’s alternative and lo-fi music scenes. Quickly becoming known for his emotionally unguarded songs and his intimate performance style, Johnston established an avid local following. National attention followed when he appeared on MTV’s The Cutting Edge, in an episode about Austin’s “New Sincerity” music scene. In 1992, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain wore Johnston’s Hi, How Are You? T-shirt to the MTV Music Awards, broadcasting his graphic art to the entire country. Over the course of three decades, Johnston released 18 albums of original music—an incredibly prolific output, especially considering the hundreds of accompanying notebooks he filled with sketches, ideas, and imagination.

Though music originally brought him recognition and acclaim, Johnston’s relentless creative energy was most vividly expressed through graphic drawing—a passion that existed alongside, and evolved with, his music career. These drawings provide a window into his emotional and psychological landscape. As Foster writes in Daniel Johnston (Rizzoli, 2025), “What I came to love about Daniel's art and music is the impulsiveness and imperfection of it all. He considered his audience, surely, but the work was never overcooked to accommodate anyone. These were his heartfelt feelings, and what is left on the page are Daniel's simple truths—mistakes and all. He could be precise in his message, but he was never precious in his expression. ‘Better done than perfect,’ as the saying goes.”

I Think, I Draw, I Am embraces the maximalism of Johnston’s artistic output and explores many of the recurring characters, themes, and stylistic tropes that appear throughout his drawings. By placing works from different years and periods in dialogue with one another, viewers can appreciate his idiosyncratic iconography, which combines the apocalyptic imagery found in religious texts such as the Bible with his encyclopedic knowledge of superhero comics. Though intensely personal, Johnston’s storytelling regularly revolves around fundamental clashes between good and evil. It’s a dynamic further expressed by the way he alternately frames his characters in a heroic light or an evil one. Redemptive figures like Captain America, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Jeremiah the Frog—which is perhaps the most emblematic one within his work—are pitted against sinister ones such as Lucifer, Satan, and Vile Corrupt, Johnston's sinister, multi-eyeballed version of Jeremiah the Frog.

Johnston’s expansive world of appropriated or invented characters is regularly accompanied by simple yet emotionally penetrating inscriptions about life, love, regret, and anxiety. These descriptions not only provide us with his inner world’s depth of feeling, but also speak to experiences and emotions more universally felt. Likewise, his drawings’ unique graphic style is immediate and freewheeling rather than carefully planned or precious. This impulsiveness remains approachable, humorous, and relatable, a distinctive trait of Johnston’s that, ultimately, provides proof of Foster’s larger observation that “If [Johnston] could think it, he could draw it.”

About the Artist

Daniel Johnston (b. Sacramento, California, 1961; d. Waller, Texas, 2019) was an American singer-songwriter and a significant figure in the indie music scene of the 1990s. Johnston produced over twenty albums and as many singles within his lifetime to an ever-growing international audience. His influence as a songwriter and musician is evident in the numerous musical icons who have covered his songs, including Tom Waits, Eddie Vedder, Beck, Phoebe Bridgers, Jeff Tweedy, and Lana Del Rey. In addition to his success in music, Johnston was celebrated for his visual art and showed his work at museums and galleries internationally, including the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Whitney Biennial in 2006. Several books and documentaries have been made about his art, music, and life, including the award-winning documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005). Today, the Hi, How Are You Project, created with the support of Johnston and his family, generates awareness and ongoing dialog about mental health in Daniel's honor.

About the Curator

Lee Foster is the general manager and co-owner of Electric Lady Studios, the legendary recording studio in Greenwich Village commissioned by Jimi Hendrix. He is also the Curatorial Advisor for the Daniel Johnston Trust.

Daniel Johnston: I Think, I Draw, I Am is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.