VIRTUAL SENIOR SHOW: Shelby Johnson
Artist Statement:
Works in Process is a photographic exhibition featuring works created between 2019 and 2021. This virtual exhibition includes selected works from several photographic short projects created in my undergraduate art courses and as well as my own independent work. The majority of the work in this exhibition was created amidst the COVID-19 pandemic when the focus of my art practice shifted to working from my home and exploring low-budget and DIY methods of image making. The photographs from Estimating Six Feet are selections from a photographic book called Homebody, which explored the meditative capacity of a daily photographic practice. I have also included images from two 2019 works that greatly influenced my current work. A second project, This is a garden for healing, features three digital scans from a fabric cyanotype installation I created in the fall of 2020. The project explored connections between healing from medical trauma following surgery and the restorative process of building and maintaining a garden. My newest cyanotype work in progress, Transparent bodies, is perhaps an extension from This is a garden for healing. The two selected prints from the series feature x-ray and MRI images I requested from my insurance company and are part of an ongoing intrinsic investigation following my surgery in August 2020 and subsequent chronic pain. Some of the prints in the series are composed of a combination of medical images and unearthly beings or environments, which can be observed in the print titled “Soft matter” which combines MRI brain scans and digital photographs of jellyfish. As the title alludes, this process of developing an art practice and exploration of different ways of making photographic work continues into the present. Following my time as a student, my biggest hope is to remain a student of my craft forever as I learn from the wisdom of the artists working before and after the present moment.
Title: Self portrait, Estimating Six Feet
Medium: Digital photograph
Year: April 2020
Description: This image of my shadow was photographed at Lighthouse Field in Santa Cruz, California during a period of daily photographic self-documentation at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Title: Social distance on Westcliff Drive, Estimating Six Feet
Medium: Digital Photograph
Year: April 2020
Description: This is an image of a public notice for the enforcement of a shelter in place order in Santa Cruz, California at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Title: Two birds, Estimating Six Feet
Medium: Digital Photograph Year: April 2020
Description: This image of two pigeons against a blue, cloudy sky was captured during a daily walk around my neighborhood as a part of my artist book homebody.
Title: Contactless delivery, Estimating Six Feet
Medium: Digital Photograph Year: April 2020
Description: This image of a large cardboard package propped over patio furniture on a front porch in Santa Cruz was captured during a daily walk around my neighborhood as a part of my artist book homebody.
Title: Two bundles, Estimating Six Feet
Medium: Digital Photograph Year: April 2020
Description: This image of two plants bundled together with rubber bands was captured during a daily walk around my neighborhood as a part of my artist book homebody.
Title: Cover page, The sight of mono lake: portrait of salt and smoke
Medium: Artist book, do-si-do longstitch binding, photographic prints on Moab Lasal Matte inkjet paper
Year: June 2019
Description: The cover of one side of the book, which is illustrated with a line drawing of Mono Lake tufa structures I printed onto the cover. This artist book features images of Mono Lake in California taken in August 2018 during the Yosemite Ferguson Fire. One side of the book shows images of burnt orange and hazy landscapes caught in smoke while the reverse shows the day after when the smoke lifted to reveal a beautiful and surreal landscape.
Title: Sample spread, The sight of mono lake: portrait of salt and smoke
Medium: Artist book, do-si-do long-stitch binding, photographic prints on Moab Lasal Matte inkjet paper
Year: June 2019
Description: Described in the book with the subtitle, “day, dawning of clarity” this sample spread from the book features images of the lake following a very smokey weekend. This artist book features images of Mono Lake in California taken in August 2018 during the Yosemite Ferguson Fire. One side of the book shows images of burnt orange and hazy landscapes caught in smoke while the reverse shows the day after when the smoke lifted to reveal a beautiful and surreal landscape.
Title: Book layout, The sight of mono lake: portrait of salt and smoke
Medium: Artist book, do-si-do long-stitch binding, photographic prints on Moab Lasal Matte inkjet paper
Description: This image shows the structure of the book, which is often described as a “do-si-do.”This artist book features images of Mono Lake in California taken in August 2018 during the Yosemite Ferguson Fire. One side of the book shows images of burnt orange and hazy landscapes caught in smoke while the reverse shows the day after when the smoke lifted to reveal a beautiful and surreal landscape.
Year: June 2019
Title: Sample spread, Life map
Medium: Accordion photographic book with wrap-around covers,
Year: May 2019
Description: This artist book is composed of a series of photographs of myself from the first twenty years of my life, created about a month before my twentieth birthday. Formatted onto a 35mm film strip, the photographs resemble a sort of contact sheet and explore notions of family portraiture and the personal archive.
Title: Colophon, Life map
Medium: Accordion photographic book with wrap-around covers,
Year: May 2019
Description: This artist book is composed of a series of photographs of myself from the first twenty years of my life, created about a month before my twentieth birthday. Formatted onto a 35mm film strip, the photographs resemble a sort of contact sheet and explore notions of family portraiture and the personal archive.
Title: Self portrait, Transparent bodies
Medium: Cyanotype from digital negative, x-ray images
Year: April 2021
Description: For this cyanotype print, I created digital negatives from a series of neck x-ray images I had taken following a concussion in the early fall of 2020. The negatives were printed on old classroom transparency sheets on a small laser office printer. The triptych is printed on a large sheet of BFK paper and has been scanned and cropped for this digital exhibition.
Title: Soft matter, Transparent bodies
Medium: Cyanotype from digital negative, x-ray images
Year: April 2021
Description: This cyanotype collages several negatives which were printed on an office laser printer using old classroom transparency sheets. Titled “Soft matter” the piece integrates jellyfish I photographed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in 2018 as a part of a short documentary film. Inspired by the deep blues and the alien-like quality of the jellies, I chose to integrate MRI brain scans into this unfamiliar underwater space, exploring the concept of bodily transparency and medical imaging.
Title: Morning dew, This is a garden for healing
Medium: Cyanotype from digital negative on cotton sateen fabric
Year: November 2020
Description: This cyanotype print documents a pollinator-friendly garden I built in my backyard in Roseville, California in the fall of 2020 as a part of a photographic installation project. The pansy plant in the center of the image is spotted in small drops of morning dew about a month after the garden was first planted. The digital negative was printed on classroom transparency paper on a laser printer and the prints in this series were all exposed and later installed in the garden where the original images were photographed.
Title: Sage textures over scars, This is a garden for healing
Medium: Cyanotype from digital negative on cotton sateen fabric
Year: November 2020
Description: This cyanotype print was created by layering an image of my chest and breast reduction scars with a close-up photograph of a sage leaf from a plant growing in the backyard pollinator garden.
Title: This is a garden for healing
Medium: Cyanotype from digital negative on cotton sateen fabric
Year: November 2020
Description: This cyanotype print documents a windy autumn day in my backyard pollinator garden. The prints in this project were created in a process of photographing the garden, creating transparencies on a laser printer, and making contact prints on fabric sheets treated with cyanotype chemistry.