| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Describing the considerations behind the composition of her print “Soliloquy” (2012), printmaker Laurel Johannesson writes, “The act of swimming underwater defies the sense of equilibrium the body requires: gravity, sight, hearing, balance. I want to place the view inside my shifting ground that contains landscape, figure, and water as one amalgam.”
Born in Wynyard, Saskatchewan, Johannesson earned her BA in Studio Art from the University of Saskatchewan (1991), her Certificate of Museum Studies from the Canadian Museums Association in Ottawa (1992), her BFA with Distinction and Distinguished Exhibition from the University of Saskatchewan (1993), and her MFA from the University of Calgary (1999); she also studied at the Royal College of Art in London.
Johannesson’s numerous residencies include time at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts on Skopelos Isle, Greece; Vallauris at Côte d’Azur, France; and Spiazzi Venezia in Venice. Johannesson has staged many solo exhibitions, including Time and Space (at Calgary’s Little Gallery; Metamorphosis at the Apothiki Art Centre in Parikia on Paros Island, Greece; and Acqua Vellutata Sospesa at Spiazzi Venezia in Venice. She has also participated in dozens of group shows, including Bookworks at Saskatoon’s AKA Artists Centre, RCA Secret at the Royal College of Art, and the Seventh Bharat Bhavan International Biennial of Print-Art at the Roonpankar Museum of Fine Arts in Bhopal, India. Johannesson has received dozens of scholarships, awards, and grants, including an Alumni Challenge Research Grant from the University of Saskatchewan, a Teacher’s Cup from the Alberta College of Art and Design’s Student Association, and an honourable mention for the integration of new technologies with print from the Biennale international d’estampe contemporaine de Trois-Rivieries, QC.
Dozens of collections across Canada, the United States, England, Italy, and Greece preserve Johannesson’s work, including those of Polaroid Canada in Toronto, Western World Communications in Regina, and the Royal College of Art. |