Anna Elise Johnson b. 1983 - Her three-dimensional collages utilize photographs of political, economic, and diplomatic meetings to create a small-scale mise-en-scéne containing an ambiguous, but a striking narrative of characters frozen in time. Delicate mists of spray paint, acrylic, and India ink suspended in a box of clear acrylic capture a chaotic stillness between characters that are defined by the void that their absence creates. It is unclear if these moments represent the past, present, or act as a directive to future political accounts.

Anna Elise Johnson currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She was a prestigious Core Fellow at the Glassell School of Art in Houston, TX from 2012 to 2014. Johnson received an MFA at The University of Chicago and a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis. She was granted an artist-in-residence at the Tottenham Hale International Studios in London, England, and was an artist’s assistant to Julie Mehretu. Johnson has been featured in over twenty group exhibitions throughout the nation, as well as internationally in India, at the University of Chicago’s Delhi Center, in Slovenia, and multiple times in Germany, her birth country. She has also had solo exhibitions in Chicago, IL, Berlin, Germany, and at the Blaffer Museum in Houston, TX.