Approved: 16.08.2006

Emma Johnson

Artist, Maker

Archived

Approved: 16.08.2006

"Altered States"

Featured artwork

"Europa"

Featured artwork

"East London"

Featured artwork

"West London (Landranger)"

Featured artwork

"La Ville Rose"

Artwork
Info

Biography

Emma Johnson explores the fragmented, multifaceted nature of memory, time and history. Johnson reconstructs maps into artworks, cutting paths and layers to transform the originals into reconstituted and complex new objects. As functional items, they are rendered virtually unreadable, but symbolically they suggest journeys (both geographical and artistic) and an almost obsessive attempt to communicate and pin down the streams of information and thought that characterise our lives. Working with mixed media and installation, my work deals with issues of deconstruction and transformation, the recycling of materials, and the ambiguity of communication - as well as the obsessive repetitive actions used in the making of the work. Found objects are reconstructed into artworks which stand as a tangible and symbolic presence of the information contained within, but are virtually unreadable - linear communication made illegible. The installations usually take the form of transient pieces, assembled from temporary throwaway materials, sourced locally to the site - using obsessive collection, categorisation, fragmentation, and juxtaposition of objects, images, and text to explore recurring themes of identity, duality, alienation and contradiction within the human condition, as well as the fragmented nature of memory, time and history. The work questions perceived symbolism by removing objects and images from their original context, deconstructing and recycling found materials, and rendering them "useless", or using them for something other than their intended purpose. The physical scale and fragmented nature of the large scale digital images gives them a certain measure of illegibility, highlighting the ambiguity of the images and the potential for imposition of inappropriate meanings. The site-specificity of these works combined with an inappropriate or unexpected use of scale manipulates/distorts accepted relationships between the human body and its scale within an architectural context.

CV & Education

Qualifications and training

1992 - HDFA (Painting), Slade School of Fine Art, London

1990 - BA (Hons) Fine Art, University of Reading, Reading

Solo exhibitions

2009 - Points of Reference, Landguard Fort, Felixstowe

2008 - Editorial Intelligence, Asylum Studios, Bentwaters, Suffolk

Group exhibitions

2014 - SMOKE, Black Diamond Gallery, Port Adelaide, Australia (Adelaide Fringe 2014)

2014 - Art14, Kensington Olympia, London.

2014 - Festival of the Beats, Town Hall, Ipswich.

2014 - London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, Islington, London. TAG Fine Arts.

2013 - When Worlds Collide, Tho Old Printworks Gallery, Saxmundham

2013 - Affordable Art Fairs, Battersea Park, and Hampstead, London.

2013 - SNOOP, Asylum Sudiios, Building 118, Bentwaters, Suffolk,

2013 - London Art Fair 2013, Business Design Centre, Islington, London TAG Fine Arts.

2013 - TAR, Black Diamond Gallery, Port Adelaide, Australia (Adelaide Fringe 2013)

2012 - Affordable Art Fairs, Battersea Park, and Hampstead, London.

2012 - Being British, Stamford Arts Centre, Stamford

2012 - London Art Fair 2012, Business Design Centre, Islington, London. TAG Fine Arts.

2012 - SNOOP, Asylum Studios, Bentwaters, Suffolk

2011 - The Art of Mapping, The Air Gallery, London

2010 - RESPONSE, Landguard Fort, Felixstowe

2009 - 10th Anniversary Show, North House Gallery, Manningtree, Essex

2009 - The Map as Art, Christopher Henry Gallery, New York

2008 - Installation, Landguard Fort, Felixstowe

2007 - DARK & DARING (part iii), St. Mary @ Quay, Ipswich

2006 - BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY, The Town Hall Galleries, Ipswich

2006 - FOLD, Design Centre North, Barnsley & The HUB National Centre For Craft & Design, Navigation Wharf, Sleaford

2006 - ON THE MAP, North House Gallery, Manningtree

2006 - TARDIS international (Videoart, Installation & Performance), Argyle Street Annexe, Suffolk College, Ipswich

2004 - "REMOTE", Centre Noroit, Arras, France

2002 - Drawn Together, Bury St. Edmunds Art Gallery, Market Cross, Bury St.Edmunds

2002 - Fragments, Kharkov City Art Gallery, Kharkov, Ukraine

Curated projects

2007 - PLAY, Key Arts, St.Mary-at-the-Quay Church, Ipswich

Residencies

2009 - Points of Reference, Landguard Fort, Felixstowe

2000 - "OUT OF THE BLUE", 10th International Art Symposium and Exhibition, MAMU Galeria, Budapest, Jaszbereny & Budapest, Hungary