When he’s not painting cars, motorcycles, helmets, signs and more, 27-year-old local air brush artist Luke Johnson covers canvases with fantastic landscapes.

Some might call it fate. Others may say “right place, right time.” Regardless, the simple act of Luke Johnson cleaning out his high school art room closet proved life-altering, as he discovered an old air compressor and set the course for his professional and creative life.

“I talked to my art teacher, and was like ‘Why’d you never teach me this?’ ” Johnson said. “After that I’d just sit in the back of class and paint with it for hours.”

After nearly a decade, Luke Johnson is now a professional airbrush artist doing custom works through his business Automotive Tattoos (on Eau Claire’s Starr Avenue) and occasional gallery exhibitions.

But back in high school, shortly after graduating, this new infatuation inspired Johnson to go to an airbrush seminar in Las Vegas. With the exception of that seminar, Johnson is completely self-taught.

“It was a long road coming,” Johnson joked. “I was pretty bad at first. But I’ve gotten a lot better in the last nine years.”

At age 21, Johnson moved to Arizona after being offered a job at Mike Loves Custom Paint Shop. Johnson worked there for about four years, until the market began to falter, and he decided to move back to Wisconsin to start his own business, Automotive Tattoos.

“I just kind of fell into it,” Johnson said. “I was unsure of what I wanted to do, and airbrush painting was something I really enjoyed and was good at.” 

Currently Johnson partners with United Auto Body as their freelance custom painter.

“They said I was the missing piece of the puzzle for them,” Johnson said. “Now they can offer professional automotive restorations and custom painting under the same roof.”

There are few things Johnson can’t paint. Aside from cars, motorcycles, and helmets, Johnson has also done extensive murals, signs, and even mailboxes.

“I look for eye-catching scenes that are loaded with detail, with lots of color and highlights,” Johnson explained. “I paint what I see, like the sky after it rains. I also like using oranges and blues. I like the contrast between the warm and cool.” 

The air compressor is different from the traditional brush because it allows the artist to create more quickly, and the paint goes on more smoothly and dries instantly, allowing Johnson to create images with high levels of realism. Though many artists often use the airbrush in combination with cut stencils, Johnson does much of his work freehand.

“It’s weird, and I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but once I’ve drawn an image once or twice I can recreate it again and again without even looking at the original,” Johnson said. “It’s almost like I have a photographic memory.”

Whether it’s a photographic memory, or simply muscle memory, what makes Johnson’s work uniquely his own is the attention to detail that goes into each of his pieces. 

“The overall quality, and the over-exaggerated attention to detail make it one-of-a-kind,” Johnson explained. “It’s a feature I like to work with because it looks good far away, but it looks three times better up close.”

You can check out Johnson’s artwork at Acoustic Café in downtown Eau Claire throughout January, and the rest of his extensive collection on his website automotivetattoos.com. Johnson has also started teaching his own airbrush classes, the next of which starts on January 14.