Anita Johnson

Born Wollongong, Australia

Lives & Works Wollongong (Tharawal)

Anita Johnson's art practice is concerned with the brokenness of things, notions of repair, human experiences of longing and states of transition. The familiar domestic objects that she transforms into sculptures are salvaged objects chosen for their history of close human interaction. The flaws, cracks, and missing parts of a salvaged object give her ways of intervening in the usual reading of that object. Pushing the object to the unexpected and improbable, to become poetic and psychologically affective objects, she often re-makes the familiar object or brings about unexpected connections with the human body and sensual materials such as felt, clay and beeswax.

The resulting sculptural objects are at once ordinary and extraordinary, mundane and magical, questioning our human relations to the world around us and to each other. They reveal themes of longing, love, loss, separation and healing.

She completed a Doctor of Creative Arts at Wollongong University in 2022 that focused on concepts of brokenness and repair within her contemporary art practice. She is also a sessional lecturer in sculpture at the National Art School.  

Her work has featured in numerous group exhibitions including the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, the UWS Acquisitive Sculpture Award, Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Blake Prize, Sculptural Felt International, Meroogal Womens Art Prize, David Harold Tribe Sculpture Award, the 6th International World Textile Biennial of Contemporary Art, Mexico, the Beijing International Art Biennale and she was invited by the World Textile Art Organisation to participate in the International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Miami in 2022.

Johnson's work is represented in public collections including the Macquarie University Sculpture Park, Wollongong Art Gallery, the National Textile Collection, Westmead Hospital, Tamworth Regional Gallery, University of Wollongongand the Australian War Memorial Art Collection.