Canadian artist Sarah Anne Johnson completed her MFA at Yale in 2004 with
a thesis project entitled "Tree Planting." This ambitious installation formed
a record of her summers spent in northern Canada engaged in the collective
activity of reforesting as a way of earning money and having a communal experience.
For her art, she combined straight photographs with photographs recording
"tableaux" made from little sculptural figures set in the landscape (formed
from the craft product Sculpee). She created these vignettes to extend the
images beyond just what she was able to record to what she remembered both
visually and emotionally. She conceived of the show project as an installation,
forming a large narrative displayed on curved walls.
In her second extended project based on ecological volunteer tourism in the Galapagos Islands (financed partially by a grant from Yale) she continues the themes of idealism and nature, and has expanded the mediums in which she works to include sculpture and painting. The Galapapos project was shown at the Winnipeg non-profit space "Plug-In" during the summer of 2006 and will be shown in an expanded version at the gallery during winter 2007. Johnson lives in Winnipeg, but spends a good part of the year teaching at Yale.
In her second extended project based on ecological volunteer tourism in the Galapagos Islands (financed partially by a grant from Yale) she continues the themes of idealism and nature, and has expanded the mediums in which she works to include sculpture and painting. The Galapapos project was shown at the Winnipeg non-profit space "Plug-In" during the summer of 2006 and will be shown in an expanded version at the gallery during winter 2007. Johnson lives in Winnipeg, but spends a good part of the year teaching at Yale.
The Galapagos Project 2005 [view
images]
Tree Planting 2002-2005 [view
images]