Justin Johnson

Artist bio

Justin Johnson

Justin D. Johnson is a contemporary multi-disciplinary American visual artist. His work extends from mixed-media, painting, and photography to film and sculpture; that explore topics ranging from African/African-American history, mythology, and spirituality. He utilizes the layering of imagery, texts, various materials such as paper, paint, metal, wood in forms of collages; to shine light on themes of ancestry, race, human resilience, and humanity.

Justin utilizes people in his work as a personification of principles and ideas, the once psychology major consistently questions the ideas of multiple societies in the present and how they transcend from the past. His theological mythologies and ideologies are demonstrated through the body of work in forms of found materials, utilizing certain pieces from his past and traditional African works/sculptures. The self-taught artist was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia; he currently lives in Nashville, TN and works between New York City & Nashville.

Johnson received a B.F.A in Photography and Video in 2018 from the School of Visual Arts. Although Justin was trained in photography, he is also a painter and works experimentally across many mediums. His form of artistic practice is an accumulative work that combine sculpture and painting. Inspired conceptually by the ideas of race, class, identity, sexuality, theology, science and history. He creates large-scale, multi-sensory installations that are kinetic and speaks to the human senses through a tangible experience catered to a focus on divinity of either self or an external force. Through exploration, Justin infuses meaning into his art by layering objects using various mediums and scale to create a diverse and engaging collection of work that can be read together as pages of the same book.

Justin has assisted and collaborated with noted creatives icons such as Photographer Carrie Mae Weems, Renee Cox, LeRone Wilson, Dru Donovan,” known media outlets such as Mass Appeal, Afropunk, HuffPost, Cosmopolitan, KultureHub, Comedian Donnell Rawlings, Actor Jussie Smollett, and others, NYU TISCH Chair of Photography & Imaging, Deborah Willis has also served as his mentor. 

His past exhibitions include:”Reflections in Black: A Reframing” Curated by Dr. Deborah Willis “ReSignifications: The Black Mediterranean” with NYU/Manifesta Biennale, “This is America” at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, PRIZM Art Fair for Art Basel ‘18, “Transfiguration” at The School of Visual Arts Flatiron Gallery, West Elm Nashville “Black Lives Matter” Exhibition and more.