Jeni Johnson

Biography

Jeni Johnson was born in Cuckfield, East Sussex in 1980 and is a visual artist and art educator. She holds a degree in Fine Art and an MA in Fine Art with Learning and Teaching in Higher Education from Kingston University.

Paintings, ceramics and wearable sculpture draw from personal experience, an interest in the mystical, Jungian theories, and most recently the Japanese art of Kintsugi.

Johnson invests dual, or even multiple, symbolic meaning to her re-occurring motifs. Visual incidents such as road signs assuming the place of celestial beings or biomorphic channel marker vessels that can direct to peace and calm. These works oscillate between a sense of danger and calm. There is a tension between abstraction and representation allowing the viewer to apply their own experience and understanding to interpret her work.

Johnson is passionate about using her work to connect with people and uses playful symbolism to explore themes around feminine power, self-acceptance and self-love.

Her work has been exhibited in London, America, Madrid, and Cyprus.

‘I am a visual artist working mostly with paint and experimenting with clay. Landscapes and motifs that populate my paintings also make their way into my ceramic sculptures. I mostly enjoy working with Earthenware clay, and I use the clay straight from the bag when it is at its most soft and malleable. This makes the process of hand-building quite challenging but I enjoy the challenge and it is in this state, the clay feels more full of breath.
Earthenware is low-firing, which makes it a good choice for me because I can be less precious about making functional objects that are non-porous, and in this way, I can go about the process in an experimental way.’