Sarah Anne Johnson

Last updated
Sarah Anne Johnson
Born1976 (age 4748)
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Alma mater University of Manitoba
Yale School of Art
Known for Installation artist, sculptor, oil painter, video artist, Performance artist, dancer
Notable workTree Planting (2005)
House On Fire (2009)
AwardsChalmers Art Fellowship
Website sarahannejohnson.ca

Sarah Anne Johnson (born 1976) is a Canadian photo-based, multidisciplinary artist working in installation, bronze sculpture, oil paint, video, performance, and dance. [1]

Contents

Life and career

Johnson received her B.F.A. at the University of Manitoba in 2002 and completed her Master's in Photography at the Yale School of Art in 2004. [2]

Her first exhibition, Tree Planting (2005), was purchased by the Guggenheim Museum while the National Gallery of Canada bought most of her second show, The Galapagos Project (2007). [3] Johnson was chosen along with other Canadian artists by curator Jonathan Shaughnessy to be shown in Builders (2012), a featured exhibition for the Canadian Biennial 2012 at the National Gallery of Canada for her role and ability to create Canada's cultural fabric. [4] Michael F.B. Nesbitt, a notable contemporary art collector who donated Johnson's House on Fire (2009) series to the Art Gallery of Ontario, proclaims Johnson as a “shining example of an artist able to tell unique, personal stories in a universal way”. [2]

Johnson lives and works in her hometown, Winnipeg. [1] She is represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto and Julie Saul Gallery [5] in New York.

Themes

Johnson explores themes of utopia, [6] the hopefulness and despair of a perfect world, humans’ relationship with the environment, and unique subcultures facing difficult conditions [1] while “poking fun at it all”. [7]

Although she often works in different media, Johnson expresses her frustrations with classical “straight” photography. [8] In the Canadian Art article “7 Lessons from Sarah Anne Johnson”, she states, “My general interest in photography is showing what something looks like, but also what it feels like [… by] altering the surface or image in any way, I can describe what a space feels like psychologically, what it feels like to be there”. By using several mediums Johnson is able to separate photography and “true” documentary photographic representation [8] by challenging the notion of photography as fact and different type of truths in capturing moments through photography.

Pamela Meredith, a senior curator at the TD Bank Group who purchased Johnson's Tree Planting (2005) series for the bank's collection stated she appreciated how Johnson recreated the photographed moment by manipulating our perception and disrupting memory. [1]

Photographic series

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions

Selected group exhibitions

Recognition

Collections

Her work is included in many Canadian and international public collections including The Guggenheim Museum, New York, [13] Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, [2] and The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. [14]

Johnson has been commissioned to create work for the Bank of Montreal Project Room, [15] Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art / Art Toronto Benefit, [16] and Louis Vuitton. [8]

Awards

She is the recipient of many grants and awards including the inaugural Grange Prize in 2008 granted by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Aeroplan, a “Major Grant” from the Manitoba Arts Council, and a finalist for the 2011 Sobey Art Award. [17]

Residencies

Johnson is an international public speaker, lecturer, and teacher. She has completed residencies in 2008 at the Banff Centre in Alberta, [20] and in 2009 at The Arctic Circle Residency [21] in Norway.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winnipeg Art Gallery</span> Public art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba

The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collection of Inuit art. In addition to exhibits for its collection, the museum has organized and hosted a number of travelling arts exhibitions. Its building complex consists of a main building that includes 11,000 square metres (120,000 sq ft) of indoor space and the adjacent 3,700-square-metre (40,000 sq ft) Qaumajuq building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessie Oonark</span> Inuk artist

Jessie Oonark, was a prolific and influential Inuk artist of the Utkuhiksalingmiut Utkuhiksalingmiut whose wall hangings, prints and drawings are in major collections including the National Gallery of Canada.

Bill Jones is a photographer, installation artist, performer and writer living in Los Angeles, CA. His work is concerned with light as both a physical phenomenon and a metaphorical figure. Jones was part of the Vancouver School of conceptual photography, along with such artists as Rodney Graham, Ian Wallace and Jeff Wall. Jones has three daughters; his youngest daughter is actress and screenwriter Zoe Lister-Jones. He is married to visual artist and writer Joy Garnett.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maira Kalman</span> American writer and illustrator

Maira Kalman is an American artist, illustrator, writer, and designer known for her painting and writing about the human condition. She is the author and illustrator of over 30 books for adults and children and her work is exhibited in museums around the world. She has been a regular contributor to The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Eleanor Bond is a Canadian multimedia artist and art educator who is best known for reworking the Canadian landscape tradition using a new ecological awareness.

Arnaud Maggs was a Canadian artist and photographer. Born in Montreal, Maggs is best known for stark portraits arranged in grid-like arrangements, which illustrate his interest in systems of identification and classification.

Laura L. Letinsky is an artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.[1] She is currently based in Chicago, Illinois where she lives and works. Letinsky’s works contend with what and how a photograph “means” while engaging and challenging the notions of domesticity, gender, and consumption. She was included in the 2019 PHotoEspaña and is a Guggenheim fellow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penelope Umbrico</span> American artist (born 1957)

Penelope Umbrico is an American artist best known for her work that appropriates images found using search engines and picture sharing websites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzy Lake</span>

Suzy Lake is an American-Canadian artist based in Toronto, Canada, who is known for her work as a photographer, performance artist and video producer. Using a range of media, Lake explores topics including identity, beauty, gender and aging. She is regarded as a pioneering feminist artist and a staunch political activist.

Vera Lutter is a German artist based in New York City. She works with several forms of digital media, including photography, projections, and video-sound installations. Through a multitude of processes, Lutter's oeuvre focuses on light and its ability to articulate the passing time and movement within a tangible image.

KC Adams is a Cree, Ojibway, and British artist and educator based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Deanna Bowen is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes films, video installations, performances, drawing, sculpture and photography. Her work addresses issues of trauma and memory through an investigation of personal and official histories related to slavery, migration, civil rights, and white supremacy in Canada and the United States. Bowen is a dual citizen of the US and Canada. She lives and works in Montreal.

Sheila Butler is an American-Canadian visual artist and retired professor, now based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is a founding member of Mentoring Artists for Women's Art in Winnipeg, Manitoba and the Sanavik Inuit Cooperative in Baker Lake, Nunavut. She is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

Leesa Streifler is a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist and art professor who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her works have been exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions, nationally and internationally, and appear in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Miranda Lichtenstein is an American artist focusing on photography and video.

The RBC Canadian Painting Competition was an open competition for emerging Canadian artists that was established in 1999. The RBC Canadian Painting Competition is supported by the Canadian Art Foundation, the publisher of Canadian Art (magazine). Initially naming three regional winners, since 2004 there were one national winner and two honourable mentions. The first two competitions had only winner and runner-up. The competition had 15 finalists, five from three regions in Canada, Eastern Canada, Central Canada (Ontario), Western Canada. Three regional juries convened to determine one national winner and two honourable mentions from the 15 finalists. The national winner received a purchase prize of $25,000, the two honourable mentions each received $15,000 and the remaining 12 finalists receive $2,500 each. The winning work and the honourable mentions became part of the RBC Corporate Art Collection which holds more than 4,500 works. In 2016, 586 works were submitted. In 2008 an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal provided an overview of the first ten years of the competition. The RBC concluded the RBC Canadian Painting Competition in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ulayu Pingwartok</span> Inuk artist

Ulayu Pingwartok was a Canadian Inuk artist known for drawings of domestic scenes and nature.

Erika DeFreitas is a Toronto-based artist who works in textiles, performance and photography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Nagam</span>

Dr. Julie Nagam is a scholar, artist, and curator based in Winnipeg, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carole Freeman (artist)</span>

Carole Freeman is a Canadian American contemporary figurative artist known for portraits and paintings of cultural, social, political, and personal significance. Freeman works in drawing, painting, and photography.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Gillmor, Alison. True to Life. Flare, 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 AGO Acquires Acclaimed Sarah Anne Johnson Installation. AGO. September 30, 2009. http://www.ago.net/ago-acquires-acclaimed-sarah-anne-johnson-installation Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  3. "Art Basel bound: Canada's most creative A-types preview the best of 2013's fair". Fashion Magazine. 2013-11-25. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  4. 1 2 Milroy, Sarah (2012-11-09). "At the National Gallery: Black and white and everything light". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  5. "Julie Saul Projects - Home". www.saulgallery.com. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Issue 126 – Special Venice Issue – June 2013". bordercrossingsmag.com. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  7. 1 2 3 Tousley, Nancy. "Sarah Anne Johnson: Northern Splendour". Canadian Art. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  8. 1 2 3 Gallpen, Britt. "7 Lessons from Sarah Anne Johnson". Canadian Art. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  9. Paterson, David. Why This Defaced Photo is Sexier Than Your Nude Selfie. The Grid. March 20, 2014. http://www.thegridto.com/city/sexuality/why-this-defaced-photo-is-sexier-than-your-nude-selfie/
  10. Cushman, Robert. National Post. February 4, 2012.
  11. Saltz, Jerry. Vision Thing. The Village Voice, 2007. http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-02-27/art/vision-thing/full/
  12. Smith, Roberta (2005-02-11). "Art in Review; Sarah Anne Johnson". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  13. Collection Online: Sarah Anne Johnson. Guggenheim. http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/5780 Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  14. Collections: Sarah Anne Johnson. http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=27734 Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  15. "BMO PROJECT ROOM 2013". BMO PROJECT ROOM 2013. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  16. Art Toronto MOCCA Benefit Edition 2013. http://www.mocca.ca/atmb2013/ Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  17. Sarah Anne Johnson Artist Page: Stephen Bulger Gallery. http://www.bulgergallery.com/dynamic/fr_artist_cv.asp?ArtistID=72 Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  18. 2011 Short List Nominees. http://www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/en/sobeyartaward/pastwinners/2011SAA/2011shortlistnominees.aspx Retrieved 17 June 2014. Archived 2012-11-23 at the Wayback Machine
  19. 2008 Winner: Sarah Anne Johnson. http://www.aimiaagophotographyprize.com/5470 Retrieved 17 June 2014. Archived 2014-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
  20. Sarah Anne Johnson Biography - The Banff Centre. http://www.banffcentre.ca/faculty/faculty-member/4343/sarah-anne-johnson/ Retrieved 17 June 2014. Archived 2013-06-17 at the Wayback Machine
  21. "The Arctic Circle – Artist & Scientist Residency Program" . Retrieved 2022-10-14.