April Zanne Johnson

I am interested in reinvention, materials, experimentation, and the emergence of subconscious clutter. The work I make, often resembling a fertile inner realm of disorienting environments may include sound forms, cyphers, architectural, landscape, and body references. This is a utopian place that mixes myth and memory. The sculptures and installation are a realization of my painted or drawn images, separate, yet symbiotic.
Since 2020 I have been creating a large installation of work that includes eight large scale graphite drawings on graphite on white paper, fourteen sculptures made from a lifetime of collected objects, obsolete technology, wood and fabric and a large scale, four panel painting. I consider these pieces one work of art. I intend for the work to be viewed together.
The two-year project is about communication, vulnerability, loss, hope, myth, memory and finally metamorphosis. The drawings are filled with body reference, landscape and architectural references. They are intended to feel like very large pages from a small sketchbook. Sentences and words are written over and over until obliterated. All the drawings and paintings have a frenetic feeling. The sculptures have hard and soft shells, beech bough spines and arm...

1993 Parsons School of Design, New York, B.F.A.

2013 Montclair State University, M.F.A.

Solo Exhibitions:
2016 “Parallel Existence”, Warren County Community College, Washington, NJ
2014 “parallax xallarap”, Herhusid Artist Residency, Siglufjörður, Iceland
2011 “The 17th Year: Secret Dialogue”, Atrium Gallery, Sussex County Community College, NJ

Exhibitions:

2023 Live Feed, live painting and performance, Generative Art Conference, Rome Italy
2023 ULTRA Cinema XII, Mexican Experimental Film Festival,Live Feed, Documentary Film and trailer for subsequent art installation project.
2021 “The New Normal: Working Through the Pandemic”, curated by Grace Graupe-Pillard for Payne Gallery at Moravian University, PA
2019 “Sense of Place”, curated by Michael Holden, 1Gap Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2018 “Visual Impressions 3rd Biennial Exhibition”, Ryan James Gallery, WA
“Live Feed”, Documented in the Project Room, Abron’s Art Center, NYC “Spectrum Gestalt 5”, Gestalt Project/ bG Gallery, Santa Monica CA “Sense of Place”, Park Place Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2017 “Portal 2017”, curated by 4Heads, 435 Broome St., NY
“The Other Art Fair N.Y.C.”, presented by Saatchi Art, June 1-4, Brooklyn Expo Center, Greenpoint, NY
“Spectrum Gestalt 4”, bG Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
“Fight or Flight”, The Painting Center, NYC
2016 “People’s Choice Salon S...