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Angela Davis Johnson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Angela Davis Johnson
Born
Orlando, Florida
NationalityAmerican
EducationSelf-taught
Known forPainting, sculpture, installation art, ritual performance art
Websitehttps://www.angeladavisjohnson.com/

Angela Davis Johnson (born 1981) is an American interdisciplinary artist whose work engages themes related to the African diaspora and cultural memory in the American South. She has lived and worked in cities including Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, and areas of Arkansas.

Early life

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Angela Davis Johnson was born in Orlando, Florida.[1] Angela and her family later moved to Virginia, where she attended Governor's School for the Arts, an art magnet high school in Norfolk, Virginia.[2] Davis Johnson's interest in art began at a young age. She was first inspired to create art by her mother, who had returned to school to study fashion design when Angela was 4 years old, and would share what she had learned with Angela and her siblings.[2] Her mother also encouraged Angela and her siblings to embrace and explore their creativity through singing, reading, and whittling, and would purchase art supplies for them.[3]

Artistry

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Johnson comes from a long line of healers and midwives, a tradition she taps into for her work.[4] Her work largely explores how Black people have weathered challenges and injustices in this world, as she states, "the ways that we've been able to withstand, the ways that we've been able to become our water, become our rain; how we've navigated this space that we're in, this time, and have been doing it through our songs and our caretaking of one another."

When asked what she hoped people would take away from her body of work, she responded:

I want people to feel the complexity of the embodied experience of Black people in this world. I want people to feel that when they see my work. We’re not just superheroes. We are all things. We are souls living this life. I want people to experience that in my work, feel the depths of that. I want people to recognize and feel their soul. See the thing beyond the construct, which is light, you know. To me, it’s like the past, present, and future. It’s all happening right now in this moment. I want people to feel that when they come by my work, when they’re away from it. I want people to witness all of that in all of our BIPOC works.

One of Johnson's paintings, “An Open Mouth Creek”, was described by The New York Times as depicting "a Black girl with sad eyes, blue hair, and whose mouth is shut, though she looks like she wants to talk. It is a piece that depicts the silencing of black women throughout history."[5] According to The Sumter Item, "what first strikes the eye and consciousness when encountering Johnson's work is the scope, the scenery, and the subjects."[6]

Her style incorporates scraps of paper and fabric into many of her oil paintings as homage to her mother, a pattern maker, and to blend humble materials into fine arts spaces.[7]

Selected work

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Selected exhibitions

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  • 2023 sweet smoke and the intimacy of forgetting (LUXradio channel) Lambrook, AR
  • 2023 tuning hush harbor fragments is…(LUXradio channel) Haugabrooks Gallery, Atlanta, GA
  • 2022 Open Studio: New Freedom Project, MINT Gallery, Atlanta, GA
  • 2020 Hotfoot Dancing the Canebrake Blues, Potter Gallery, Watertown, CT
  • 2019 WEATHERIN BETWEEN CANEBRAKE BLUES, Sumter County Art Gallery, Sumter, South Carolina
  • 2018 Magenta Portraits, Bradbury Art Museum, Jonesboro, AR
  • 2018 Blu Blak: Angela Davis Johnson rendering and hollerin sketches, or Blue Hole Scraps from the Archives, MINT Gallery, Atlanta, GA[8]
  • 2017 Ritual || Reasoning + Codes, The Butler Center, Little Rock, AR
  • 2016 Wondrous Possibilities of Falling and Flying, THEA Foundation, North Little Rock, AR
  • 2015 Ashes on the Fruit Trees, Argenta Art Gallery, North Little Rock, AR
  • 2015 black. lace arrangements, University of Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR

Selected group exhibitions and collaborations

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  • 2021 Spectrum, Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN
  • 2021 Staying Power, Hollerin Space, Philadelphia, PA
  • 2020 Super Blues, Hollerin Space, digital soundbath
  • 2020 Jubilee 11213, Weeksville Collaboration Ebony Noelle Golden
  • 2019 Personal Space, Canebrake Blues, Art Ventures, Fayetteville, AR
  • 2019 ArtintheATL, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Atlanta, GA
  • 2019 Notions of Saintly Flesh, Living Melody Collective, Tampa, FL
  • 2018 Center for Civic and Human Rights, Living Melody Collective, Atlanta, GA
  • 2018 Identity at Arms Length, Still Point, Atlanta, GA
  • 2018 Gasping Whiteness, Ensemble, Amherst, MA
  • 2018 O Freedom, My Beloved, Zucot Gallery, Atlanta, GA
  • 2018 Ain’t I a Woman, TILA Studios, Atlanta, GA
  • 2017 red roots x black tones ̖ 40 hollerin remix: ....folk still dreaming? Hollerin Space collaborative performance with Alternate Roots members at 2016 ROOTS Week, Lutheridge, NC
  • 2017 Living Letters, Hollerin Space, Detroit, MI
  • 2017 A Sense of Place, Fayetteville Underground, Fayetteville, AR
  • 2016 Haints & Healing: the Hollerin Space, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS

Performances

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  • 2019 HOT FOOT THEORIZING, Phillips County, AR (filmed by muthi reed)
  • 2019 Black n’ da Blues, Remember 2019, Arkansas tour: Crystal Bridges Museum, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Elaine Legacy Center
  • 2018 Blu BLAK live dream live mix (Hollerin Space with muthi reed), MINT Gallery, Atlanta, GA
  • 2017 #3everyday, Atlanta, GA
  • 2017 Looking for Sister, Alternate ROOTS, Arden, North Carolina
  • 2016 “I”is not a Song Alone, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
  • 2015 Procession: A Walk with Ancestors, Atlanta, GA
  • 2015 When the Sun and Moon Stood Still, I Witnessed, Little Rock, AR

Permanent collections

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  • Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, Little Rock, AR
  • Central Arkansas Library System, McMath Library Branch Little Rock, AR
  • Brooks Co., Wabash, AR[1]

Awards, fellowships and residencies

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Awards and fellowships

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  • 2020/21 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellowship
  • 2018 MINT ATL Leap Year Fellowship
  • 2017 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant Nominee
  • 2017 Ensemble Theater Grant Awardee
  • 2016 Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Nominee
  • 2015 Alternate Roots/Joan Mitchell Visual Art Scholar

Residencies

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  • 2022 Fountainhead Residency
  • 2022 The New Freedom Project/ BAIA, Atlanta, GA
  • 2019 Tempus Project, Tampa, FL
  • 2019 Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts
  • 2019 Fallawayinto Intensive, Philadelphia, PA
  • 2018 Hambidge Arts Center Residency, Rabun County, GA
  • 2018 MINT Leap Year, Atlanta, GA

References

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  1. ^ a b "Angela Davis Johnson CV" (PDF). Angeladavisjohnson.com. Retrieved Mar 23, 2019.
  2. ^ a b "Q & A | Artist Angela Davis Johnson | CommonCreativ ATL". Retrieved 2019-03-23.
  3. ^ Relyea, Laura (2018-07-23). "Kind of Blue: Angela Davis Johnson tends to the wounds of the diaspora with "BLU BLAK"". ARTS ATL. Retrieved 2023-06-09.
  4. ^ Rosa, Amanda (July 18, 2022). "Healer, rebel, tribal leader: Meet the artists at this Miami residency for BIPOC mothers". Miami Herald. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
  5. ^ Smith, Kelundra (2018-12-11). "Overlooked in Atlanta, Black Female Artists Try Miami". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-09.
  6. ^ Item, NAPOLEON WELLS Special to The Sumter (2019-05-22). "The Blues and the Sky: Artists tell stories of black personhood, survival". The Sumter Item. Archived from the original on 2023-06-09. Retrieved 2023-06-09.
  7. ^ Feaster, Felicia (16 April 2020). "Talented emerging Atlanta artists to watch". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  8. ^ "Kind of Blue: Angela Davis Johnson tends to the wounds of the diaspora with "BLU BLAK"". ARTS ATL. 2018-07-23. Retrieved 2019-03-23.
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