Denise Johnson
Curatorial Projects |
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2016 |
Torrance Art Museum |
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2015 |
Patrick Painter Gallery, Los Angeles |
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2013 |
Kellogg Gallery, CSU Pomona |
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2012 |
For Your Art, Los Angeles |
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2011 |
Pelham Art Center, New York |
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2011 |
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2010 |
Wignall Museum, Chaffey College |
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2007 |
Wignall Museum, Chaffey College |
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My work is founded by a strong feminist critique and a deep interest in the woman’s body as a sight/ site of pleasure as well as of pain, abjection, humiliation and distrust. I have often begun projects through an exploration of self with the intention of catharsis. However, I hope that this inspection of personal identity does not engulf the work, but instead allows a much needed critique on the construction of gender and a critical analysis on the cultural consumption of the woman’s body. Because my work is conceptually driven, I do not prefer specific media nor do I linger in signature strategies for too long. I enjoy a play between media and message and am invested in a postmodern breakdown of modernist notions of kitsch, the supremacy of painting, the heroic genius of the male avant-garde and an aversion to things personal. My body of work may at first seem disparate and incongruous, but shared veins of thought and a collective trajectory of understanding tenuously hold things together. A kind of overarching theme (if I must have one) to my works is an exploration of the methods and aesthetics of female empowerment and disempowerment. For example, an early series of silk-screened images of “powerful” women inspired by comic books and television heroines imagines the woman in control of her body, her likeness and her sexual self but inevitably invokes a sense of tension, a kind of begging the question - Is undress and sexual prowess the only means by which women can attain control? I have continually revisited issues of the body and bodily pleasures. The consumption of sweets, the guilt and shame associated with desire, the ramifications of consumer obsession with objects and images of satisfaction and an unquenchable thirst for more are all central concerns to works such as Sweet Dreams, Sweethearts, and the Bulemic Vargas Girl. While these projects dwell in a very political space, self-deprecation and an interest in sarcasm jest with the serious undertones and are employed as measures of humility and sincerity. I have also been drawn to a deconstruction of childhood entertainments like the fairy tale and the nursery rhyme. The stereotypes and impeding structures that these old-fashioned compositions continue to impose are fascinating to me. Works like Mirror, Mirror on the Wall and Le Prince, which were part of a body of work entitled Flights of Fancy, as well as The Three Graces, function to destroy conventional notions of the woman in need of rescue (from herself and others) while also poking fun at the methods by which western women have been marginalized for so long. |
Exhibition History
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2016 |
CURRENT LA, Point Fermin, San Pedro |
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LACE, Los Angeles |
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2015 |
(En)Gendered (In)Equity: Gallery Tally Poster Project |
Matucana 100, Santiago, Chile |
(En)Gendered (In)Equity: Gallery Tally Poster Project |
Woman Made Gallery, Chicago |
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2014 |
(En)Gendered (In)Equity: Gallery Tally Poster Project |
For Your Art, Los Angeles |
2013 |
Margin Release Right |
West LA College Art Gallery |
2011 |
Chain Letter |
Shoshana Wayne, Los Angeles |
Jade Bemiller Benefit |
Offramp Gallery, Pasadena |
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2010 |
The 210 Show |
Project 210, Pasadena |
2008 |
210 Gallery Opener |
Project 210, Pasadena |
Cal State San Bernardino |
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Inlandia: A to Z coloring book |
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2007 |
El Camino College Art Gallery, Torrance |
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2005 |
UCLA Student Activities Center |
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2002 |
Flights of Fancy |
Sprout Gallery, Los Angeles |
2001 |
The Faculty Show |
Mt. San Jacinto College Fine Arts Gallery |
2000 |
Cal Arts, Valencia |
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Cal Arts, Valencia |
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1999 |
Memory & Montage |
Cal Arts, Valencia |
Cal Arts, Valencia |
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CAA MFA Juried Exhibition |
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery |
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Cal Arts, Valencia |
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1998 |
Cal Arts, Valencia |
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1998 - 2000 |
Cal Arts, Valencia |
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1997 |
Sweeney Art Gallery, UC Riverside |
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Student Art Gallery, UC Riverside |
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1996 |
Student Art Gallery, UC Riverside |
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Portfolio Contents |
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click on the blue text to see images of the work |
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| Selected Fine Art | |
2014 |
(en)Gendered (in)Equality: Gallery Tally Project, For Your Art, Los Angeles |
2013 |
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(en)Gendered (in)Equality: Gallery Tally Project, Margin Release Right, West LA College Gallery |
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2012 |
One Image, One Minute |
2011 |
Chain Letter, Shoshana Wayne, Los Angeles |
2008 |
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2007 |
Votes for Women part of Edith Abeyta's Salty: Three Tales of Sorrow |
2005 |
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2002 |
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Flights of Fancy |
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Run, Run, Run Fast As You Can |
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2001 |
Bad Girls |
2000 |
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Untitled (Dresses) |
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Untitled (Pointe Shoes) |
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Children on Their Knees |
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1999 |
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Neurotic: tending to respond to present life situations on the basis of their resemblance to early childhood experiences or on the basis of an idealized concept of the self rather than in terms of immediate reality |
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It is estimated that 30.6 million people worldwide are infected with HIV/ AIDS |
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1998 |
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1998 - 2000 |
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1997 |
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Lu |
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1996 |
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Self-Portrait |
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Syringe Painting |
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Diabetic Fingerprints |
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Untitled etching |
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| 1994 | |
| Select Commercial Work | |
2004 |
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2002 |
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Education |
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1997 - 2000 |
Master of Fine Art |
California Institute of the Arts, Valencia |
1993 - 1997 |
Bachelor of Art |
UC Riverside |
in Art & Psychology |
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