Melanie Johnson is an Associate Professor of Art & Design and Foundations Coordinator at the University of Central Missouri. She received her MFA in Painting from Indiana University.
Johnson’s work consists of large-scale figurative drawing and painting and deals with psychological narrative themes. Her work has been exhibited regionally, nationally, and internationally. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Charlotte Street Foundations Studio Residency Program in Kansas City, Missouri.
Johnson lives with her son, two dogs, and two cats in Kansas City.
Artist Statement: (excerpt from Johnson’s website)
Drawing is a vehicle, here used as a medium to construct stories and as a forum to exercise the physical process of finding those stories. The work is representational—it is easy to discern what is being depicted. As such, the drawings convey to the viewer recognizable imagery, and there is immediacy in that recognition. Each drawing is also a record of the history inherent in its own manifestation. In a very basic sense, it is a record of the act of looking, of touching, and of constructing meaning through relating one mark or image to another over a period– a physical testament to the passage of time and a series of visual decisions. I am interested in the simultaneous read of an immediately recognizable image that asks the viewer to linger over a history and meaning that unfold more slowly.
Read Johnson’s full artist statement at her website.
Website: melanie-johnson-iixi.squarespace.com
Recent Work:
