Glyneisha Johnson is a recent graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute’s Painting department. She is also a recipient of Charlotte Street Foundation’s 2017-2018 studio residency program in Kansas City, Missouri. She has exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions in Kansas City, including Undergrads Underground at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center and The Writer's Place. Through collage, painting, and drawing, Glyneisha Johnson’s work echoes nodes of black culture and her experience of being raised in the South. The work also acknowledges the importance of Black domestic spaces within a society that often overlooks these spaces and the people who inhabit them. She uses the language of collage as a metaphor to describe the dislocated, collaged nature of black history due to colonialism.
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Talk about the work that will be on view. What would you like people to know about it?
The work on view is a photoshoot of a black couple that follows the chronology of a breakup in relation to a personal breakup of mine. The positions of the figures, the curation of the home and the couple’s expression outline one emotion before, during, or following a separation.
What’s the most challenging thing about your creative process?
The most challenging thing about my creative process is finishing work to meet the demand of exhibiting or selling. My artistic practice has really turned into meticulous mark making. The process for me is very ritualistic and sometimes removing myself from that process can be hard.
Who are the other artists you look to for inspiration? And what about their works do you like?
I have always admired artists Romare Bearden and Kerry James Marshall. In a lot of ways, I actually look toward them as father figures. Bearden’s use of colorful collage that is set during the Harlem Renaissance really speaks to the use of collage as a metaphor to describe black culture. My collages actually started by recreating and looking really closely at Bearden’s work through different materials. Marshalls black and white interiors with figures really helped me think about representation through the abstract in my work.
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5-10 books, music and/or movies that have inspired you:
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Black Sexual Politics by Patricia Hill Collins
Everything is Love by the Carters
Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash
