US (artist)

uS... was the principal pseudonym for the American artist Chris Johnson (born Christopher David Johnson, May 17, 1973, Gastonia, North Carolina) until early 2006, who notably was drawn to the profession after visiting many of the prominent art museums in Europe while serving a court ordered tour as a cook in the United States Navy.

While primarily considering himself a painter, he also transformed otherwise benign photography into art through appropriation behind the moniker linuS, coining the term "Appropriagraphy", as well as conceiving sculpture/installation works under various disassociating metaphoric aliases. Also worthy of note, he collaborated with his close friend from childhood, Brent Bumgarner, to create the "Dark Drawings" series in 2005 from Bumgarner's convalescent apartment in Asheville, NC. Bumgarner tragically became blinded and paralyzed from the neck down in an automobile accident in February of 1999, and used his mouth as the pencil support.