Sarah Anne Johnson

Sarah Anne Johnson (born 1976) is a Canadian photo-based, multidisciplinary artist working in installation, bronze sculpture, oil paint, video, performance, and dance.
Life and career.
Johnson received her B.F.A. at the University of Manitoba in 2002 and completed her Master's in Photography at the Yale School of Art in 2004.
Her first exhibition, Tree Planting (2005), was purchased by the Guggenheim Museum while the National Gallery of Canada bought most of her second show, The Galapagos Project (2007). Johnson was chosen along with other Canadian artists by curator Jonathan Shaughnessy to be shown in Builders (2012), a featured exhibition for the Canadian Biennial 2012 at the National Gallery of Canada for her role and ability to create Canada's cultural fabric. Michael F.B. Nesbitt, a notable contemporary art collector who donated Johnson's House on Fire (2009) series to the Art Gallery of Ontario, proclaims Johnson as a “shining example of an artist able to tell unique, personal stories in a universal way”.
Johnson lives and works in her hometown, Winnipeg. She is represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto and Julie Saul Gallery in New York.
Themes.
Johnson explores themes of utopia, the hopefulness and despair of a perfect world, humans’ relationship with the environment, and unique subcultures facing difficult conditions while “poking fun at it all”.
Although she often works in different media, Johnson expresses her frustrations with classical “straight” photography. In the Canadian Art article “7 Lessons from Sarah Anne Johnson”, she states, “My general interest in photography is showing what something looks like, but also what it feels like [… by] altering the surface or image in any way, I can describe what a space feels like psychologically, what it feels like to be there”. By using several mediums Johnson is able to separate photography and “true” documentary photographic representation by challenging the notion of photography as fact and different type of truths in capturing moments through photography.
Pamela Meredith, a senior curator at the TD Bank Group who purchased Johnson's Tree Planting (2005) series for the bank's collection stated she appreciated how Johnson recreated the photographed moment by manipulating our perception and disrupting memory.
Recognition.
Collections.
Her work is included in many Canadian and international public collections including The Guggenheim Museum, New York, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Johnson has been commissioned to create work for the Bank of Montreal Project Room, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art / Art Toronto Benefit, and Louis Vuitton.
Awards.
She is the recipient of many grants and awards including the inaugural Grange Prize in 2008 granted by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Aeroplan, a “Major Grant” from the Manitoba Arts Council, and a finalist for the 2011 Sobey Art Award.
Residencies.
Johnson is an international public speaker, lecturer, and teacher. She has completed residencies in 2008 at the Banff Centre in Alberta, and in 2009 at The Arctic Circle Residency in Norway.