Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!
An artist’s studio research is often described as a practice, and while I’ve heard some grumble about this in the past, I feel that it’s a pretty apt descriptor for what an artist actually does in the studio. Perhaps it is an unpopular opinion, but I think being an artist is yoked to the action of making, showing up on a regular basis, researching through making, trying, failing, improving and turning nothings into somethings, again and again and again (thinking is good, but it’s not enough). The ‘success’ here is embedded in the showing up and making of the work, not in any potential financial compensation or critical acclaim (and the trick is to keep showing up with honesty, integrity and humility even if any of these external factors actually do occur). I see a sincere embodiment of this type of practice in Mariah Anne Johnson’s inspiring work.
Playful and liberating, but also consistent and devoted, Mariah’s work leans heavily into landscape and often the landscape of the domestic realm. The home (and its accoutrements), the neighborhood, the mundane ephemera of the household and the inhabitants of these spaces, become subject, media and content for creation. Citing her body as a primary tool of her practice, she takes this to the max by using all of her senses, as well as the physical dimensions of her body to interpret, explore and organize the world around her. Mariah’s work is not beholden to a singular media and takes many forms (her chromatic bedsheet installations were the first that I fell hard for, but today I am equally enamored with her suspended cardboard constructions, her aesthetically arranged collections of found scraps and her videos of movement sequences).
I was first introduced to Mariah’s work many years ago through her very smart artist-run space, Porch Projects, which existed in Washington, DC for two years in the early 2010s (I’ve already used the SAS platform to expound on my love for artist-run exhibition spaces and I’m not afraid to do it again). Mariah’s curation for Porch Projects (arguably an art piece in and of itself) disrupted traditional notions of media and installation, often creating unique conversations between the various artists’ work, as well as the space of the home (more about the amazing history of the DC artist-run scene past & present can be found here).
Not surprising even a little bit, Mariah has given us another gem of a Short Answer Sunday. Hope you enjoy! For more about Mariah Anne Johnson and her work, take a look at her website and follow her on Instagram.
xo, Lauren
Name: Mariah Anne Johnson
Occupation: artist
Astrological data: Taurus
Hometown: Little Rock, Arkansas
Current location: Los Angeles, California
Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?
Seeing their work in exhibitions.
An artwork that makes you laugh?
Jan Erichsen’s performative sculpture videos on Instagram.
Klara Liden’s video Untitled (Trashcan) that I saw in the Julia Stoschek Foundation exhibition in Los Angeles.
An artwork that makes you cry?
I saw the Monuments exhibition at MOCA (of works shown with and in some cases made about removed Confederate statues and memorials) just before it closed. I had a moment of shock and sadness when I rounded a corner and saw a familiar place (front steps of Little Rock Central High School) in one of Jon Henry’s Strange Fruit photographs. This exhibition continues to resonate, with the recent actions against voting rights in Louisiana, Tennessee, etc. I wish those who need to see it would.
Most underrated artist?
The female ones!
An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?
Monet’s house and garden in Giverny, France. I feel this should count as an artwork.
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| Maison et jardins de Claude Monet, Giverny Image Source |
An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?
I have been thinking a lot about Louise Nevelson recently. Last year I read the biography of her by Laurie Wilson, and my hometown art museum (Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts) had an exhibition of her work that I got to see on a trip to visit my folks. I also saw an exhibition of her small collages a few years ago that has stuck with me. Her relentless pursuit of her own vision, consequences be damned, is inspiring.
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| Louise Nevelson, Untitled, 1969, cardboard, paper and sandpaper collage on board, 20 x 16 in. Image Source |
An artwork that feels like a warm hug?
Open Window, Collioure, by Henri Matisse (1905). This painting lives at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. I used to visit it often when I lived there.
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| Henri Matisse, Open Window, Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, 21 3/4 × 18 1/8 in. Image Source |
What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?
When I was teaching, I talked to students about “rewarding the viewer,” giving those who spend the time to look at your work a reason to do so, perhaps inviting them to look longer and closer. I suppose that’s what I appreciate in a work, and I try to reciprocate by being generous with my time and my senses, really paying attention when I am present to experience a work.
What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?
Many of Sam Scharf’s works. I especially love his benches and his PVC pipe pieces, the way they try so hard to fit into the vernacular built environment around them, but their craft, thought, and care give them away.
What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?
I really love Monet. The more I have learned about him in recent years, the more I appreciate his work and his practice as an example to follow. Set me down in the middle of Musee de l’Orangerie in Paris, and let me be.
What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?
I don’t like Renoir too much.
I didn’t enjoy the Tala Madani exhibition at MOCA a few years ago. The room after room of huge smeary paintings irritated me! I did enjoy her videos in the same exhibition, and I wish they had not seemed like a side project or secondary practice.
Most insane art piece?
The earthworks from the 1970’s. Gordon Matta-Clark slicing up houses. The Vienna Actionist performances. James Turrell’s Roden Crater.
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| Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting, 1974 (SFMOMA) © Succession of Gordon Matta-Clark and Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark Image Source |
Fav museum or gallery in your current location?
Joan and Monte Vista Projects in the Bendix Building downtown are always good. So are Chris Sharp Gallery and Guerrero Gallery.
Last exhibition you saw irl?
Over the past week I have caught the last day of several exhibitions. I especially loved Neighborhood Ecology at the Brand Library & Gallery in Glendale, CA (included two amazing Megan Mueller wall installations, a beautiful imaginary community made from wood scraps by Susan Feldman, and a moving short film by Jazmin Garcia); and Roksana Pirouzmand’s everything was once something else (the land was the sea, the sea was the land) at Joan, a meditation on the relationship between the elements and our bodies, and bringing up the next generation inside this relationship.
An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?
Solo keyboard works by J.S. Bach.
What art material do you love to nerd out on?
At the moment I am excited by sketchbooks, colored pencils, and water activated tape. I am not an expert about any of these materials, but I love them and use them daily.
What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?
Sofiane Pamart’s Planet Gold album. John Adams’ Road Movies album.
What’s a book that changed your life?
I really love Claudio Magris’ Danube, as well as the travel writing of Cees Nooteboom. Their mapping of personal experience, poetry, literature, and history onto place probably informs my current work in ways I haven’t thought about. Plus, they are both just beautiful writers.
What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?
Everyone should read Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake trilogy. But not at bedtime.
❤
Mariah Anne Johnson explores bodily experience in the landscape through drawing and movement. She creates videos, installations, and works on paper from the knowledge she collects through these processes. Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, she studied art and literature at Rice University while performing with Rice Dance Theater, earning her MFA from the University of Illinois (2006). Recent projects include a residency and video installation at Zaratan Arte Contemporânea (Lisbon); participation in the 29th Recontres Internationales Traverse in Toulouse, France; inclusion in Los Outsiders’ Chai’n Brai Laika Daimon (Laredo and Austin, Texas); and an ongoing project about her neighborhood, Rhythms Around Us. She has received the Riddergade Fellowship from Viborg Kunsthal (Denmark) and performed with Hayley Cutler’s darlingdance. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.
