Johnson went to art school in New Zealand, but didn’t finish and says that, in some ways, her fine art career came later. “I was probably more involved in DIY spaces and the music scene,” she says. “I used to do artwork for friends’ gigs in music and stuff like that. I always really loved doing posters.”
While in her early twenties, Johnson moved to Australia and co-ran a DIY space, where she would draw posters for the events. After the venue closed, she took off time to develop her own art practice. “I had this year where I was really diligent and drew every day, locked myself in the studio,” she recalls, adding that there were “hints of the sci-fi world” in these drawings, but it had yet to take shape. Johnson describes these earlier drawings as “two-dimensional, flat, impenetrable masses of pattern.”
There’s not a lot of conscious decision-making going on with the drawings at all. They feel almost like they’re self-generative at this point.”
In time, her art universe evolved. First there was a horizon line. She started using a “Tron-type grid” that became part of the landscape. Then came architecture. After about three years of drawing, “the bodies started to appear.”
Johnson explains, “Once the bodies appeared, they started taking on these ritualistic scenes.” Soon, there were “alien deities” and a “social hierarchy” within the universe. She describes it as a process similar to building a stage set. “Once you create an environment, you start to populate it.” From there, “it just becomes richer and more complex the more you add to it.”
After about four or five years of drawing, Johnson noticed a shift in how she continued to build her universe. “I stopped having to look outside the world too much for external imagery and I was constantly referencing back to earlier work for this internal language built up,” she says. Once that happened, Johnson was able to draw without thinking too much about it.
“There’s not a lot of conscious decision-making going on with the drawings at all,” she says. “They feel almost like they’re self-generative at this point. Each drawing builds on the one before and it expands in that way.”
Johnson’s drawings may begin with the text or a singular image that has been on her mind. From there, other elements will take shape on the paper. She starts with some pencil, but will quickly move to pen, which Johnson says helps her to resist the urge to perfect the drawing. For color, she uses both paint pens and fiber-tip markers. She adds gouache for some figures and other elements at the end of the process.
