Ann Johnson: Ironic

February 25 - March 25,2023

From Hooks-Epstein Gallery: "Ironic by Ann Johnson explores family, community, and Black womanhood—specifically being seen and seeing the women in the shadows. Johnson uses the ironing board as a sacred symbol that represents the backbreaking work many women of color have had to endure for survival. The work in the exhibition evokes powerful imagery through Johnson’sintegration of her experimental printmaking technique with an unexpected medium. The ironing board is a physical object that serves as a medal of honor that many Black women and women of color have earned, having had to take care of families of others before being allowed to tend to their own—the irony being that the least regarded person is actually the most valuable to the home.

Ann Johnson received her undergraduate degree in Home Economics at Prairie View A&M University (TX), where she currently teaches. She earned her M.A. in Humanities from the University of Houston-Clear Lake and M.F.A. with a concentration in printmaking from The Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Johnson is a member of the ROUX Collective and is one of the founding members of PrintMatters Houston. Primarily an interdisciplinary artist, her passion for exploring issues, particularly in the Black community, has led her to create series of challenging and thought-provoking works that engage and inspire the viewer.

Johnson’s work has been shown nationally in various solo, group, and juried exhibitions. Her solo exhibition, Unseen Traces in the Work of Ann Johnson, is currently on view at the Plains Art Museum (Fargo, ND). Earlier this year, Johnson was noted as one of ten artists in Black Art in America’s “10 Most Transformational Artists of the Year”. In 2022, Johnson’s large-scale installation See Me: The Sankofa Project was on display at the Lawndale Art Center. Her series It Is the Not Knowing That Burns My Soul was included in Indivisible at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Select institutions in which Johnson’s work has been exhibited include The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Printing Museum (Houston), Project Row Houses (Houston), Women and Their Work gallery (Austin), the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History (Flint, MI), the Highpoint Center for Printmaking (Minneapolis, MN), the Apex Museum (Atlanta), and the California African American Museum (Los Angeles)."

Reception: February 25, 2023 | 4-7 pm

Hooks-Epstein Galleries 2631 Colquitt Street
Houston, TX 77098
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