(b. 1976, Winnipeg, Canada)
Sarah Anne Johnson lives and works in Winnipeg where she was born in 1976. She studied Fine Arts at the University of Manitoba and completed her Graduate studies at the Yale School of Art in 2004. She is a photo-based artist who uses a variety of media in realizing her work. Her graduating exhibition, “Tree Planting” consisting of 64 colour photographs of various sizes depicting her experiences tree planting in Northern Manitoba, was purchased by The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum for their permanent collection. Upon graduating from her Master’s program, she was awarded the Schickle-Collingwood Prize from the Yale School of Art to fund the research for her next project, “the Galapagos Project”. In the 14 years which followed she created five more bodies of work and all of them have been exhibited broadly.
Johnson has been the recipient of many awards and grants, including the inaugural Grange Prize (now the AMIA Prize) and a Canada Council Major Grant in 2008. She was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award in 2011 and 2015. She has participated in several residencies including The Arctic Circle Residency in Norway, the Artist in Residence at Emily Carr University and the Banff Centre where she was a residency leader. She taught photography at Yale School of Art, at Emily Carr University and recently, for two years at the Yale School of Art Norfolk Summer School. She also taught sculpture at the University Manitoba. She has received a number of commissions including: Hermes, Louis Vuitton, the BMO Project Room, the MoCCA Benefit Auction, and a 144-foot-long photography mural for the Weston Harbour Castle Convention Centre, commissioned by CONTACT Photography Festival and Partners-in-Art.
In September 2018 her work was included in a group exhibition at the Met Breuer (her third time showing at the Met in less than two years). She will also be exhibiting a performance piece at Arsenal Contemporary and will have an exhibition of new work at Julie Saul Gallery in New York.
