Johanna Robinson is a Brooklyn-based artist whose paintings employ humor, absurdity, and irony to undermine anthropocentrism—or the belief that human beings are the center of the universe, an idea proliferated by the Western art canon. The artist’s work, connected to a long lineage of women surrealist and symbolist painters, relies on imagination as a source for truth-seeking and world-building. Recent exhibitions include NADA Curated: Reduction to Satire, curated by Fatos Ustek, Wish Fulfillment, CRUSH Projects, New York; AmphorasamorphA, Flux Factory, Governor’s Island, curated by Sally Beauty; Welcome, Tomato Mouse, Brooklyn; The Symbolists, HESSE FLATOW, New York, curated by Nicole Kaack; New American Paintings Pacific Coast Review, Zevitas Marcus, Los Angeles; Against Forgetting, Gaa Gallery, Provincetown; Phone Home, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, curated by Wendy Vogel; Surreality, Crush Curatorial, New York; among others. Robinson has been awarded artist residencies at MASS MoCA, Leland Iron Works: Pacific Northwest College of Art, and The Vermont Studio Center. Her work has been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Brooklyn Magazine, Sammy’s World, and New American Paintings. Robinson received her BFA in 2007 from the School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, MA, and her MFA in Painting in 2018 from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA.
Images: Johanna Robinso in the studio. Photo: Sara Laufer
