@shannonpjohnsonart

shannonpjohnson.com

Shannon Johnson

As a radical feminist, I see connections everywhere as I am constantly examining life through an understanding of structural patriarchy. While utilizing a feminist lens I explore issues of bodily autonomy, social justice, intimacy, trauma, mental illness, and sexual violence. Using photography, printmaking, bookmaking, and installation I seek to explore and understand the relationships between the images, objects, and interpretations of the roles and values of women and our bodies.

The art making process is an embodied activity. It engages the entire body in response to a creative urge or desire to express oneself. Printmaking is a strenuous practice that requires your whole mind and body to maintain an equal stamina to complete its process, not once but multiple times—in hopes to present a uniformed final product. The way I make photographs is embodied. When I am making a self-portrait, I contort my body to extremes to get the just perfectly right angle or refraction of light. To photograph oneself is a radical act, because it’s an act that demonstrates self-reclamation. When I click the shutter, I rewrite every dialogue I have had.

As I am processing my sexuality, trauma, and identity, I am simultaneously gathering archival photographs—creating my own archive of historical female identity, companionship, interaction, romantic friendship, and sororal solidarity. I am attempting to piece together my process of recovery from sexual violence and discover how integral these female relationships were and continue to be part of my processing of trauma. My work is explicit and raw—its direct confrontation is essential to convey the urgency of my rage and my abiding need for freedom.

I come back in with a one-two, 2025.
Archival inkjet print, 20 × 13 in.

Don’t Fucking Touch Me (and I hope you fucking suffer), 2024.
Monotype on Rives BFK paper, 30 × 22 in.

Something More Tender Still (that’s why I love fall), 2024.
Photolithograph on inkjet print on Rives BFK paper, 20 × 30 in.

IT’S A CRAVING NOT A CRUSH, 2024.
Silkscreen print on Somerset paper, 18 × 18 in.

Pansies (darling, you’re so pretty, it hurts), 2025.
Ink, colored pencil, and collage on inkjet print on paper, 16 × 20 in.