MARIAH ANNE JOHNSON | “Talk to the Room / Talk to the Sea”

23 Junho 2022 16h00

Zaratan AIR | Open Studio
MARIAH ANNE JOHNSON | “Talk to the Room / Talk to the Sea”

23-24-25 June 2022 
Thu-Sun, 16:00-20:00

Mariah Anne Johnson explores the physical realities of bodily experience and art making in the landscape through drawing and movement. She uses her body as a tool for direct examination of the world around her, for defining edges, filling spaces, and calling attention to natural phenomena. Her observations of and movements within a site create an intuitive, phenomenological basis for art making. Her process results in performative actions, works on paper, and large scale installations that describe her understanding of a specific place, be it a wild mountainside or her own living room.
During her residency at Zaratan, Mariah has been working with less examined sensory inputs — sound and touch — to guide her explorations of Lisbon. These visceral sensations, harder to articulate than what is seen, lead her into the idiosyncrasies of her studio and conduct her into the city beyond, creating bodily links between sites. Her work here has toggled between the concrete and the poetic, the practical and the fanciful, the real and the imagined. 
“Talk to the Room / Talk to the Sea” is a video installation that brings together a set of recordings resulting from her performative processes.
 
> MARIAH ANNE JOHNSON | www.mariahannejohnson.com 
Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, Mariah focused on art and literature at Rice University while performing with Rice Dance Theater and earned her MFA from the University of Illinois in 2006. Mariah's works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around the United States, from Los Angeles to New York, Houston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., where she lived and worked from 2009 until 2018. From 2011-2018 Mariah taught painting and drawing at George Washington University. She has undertaken international artist residencies, including the Riddergade AIR Fellowship at Viborg Kunsthal in Denmark, and performed wit Hayley Cutler’s darlingdance company. She currently lives with her family in Los Angeles, where she continues to find the adventure in art making.