Angela Davis Johnson

Angela Davis Johnson (born 1981) is an American interdisciplinary artist whose work engages themes related to the African diaspora and cultural memory in the American South. She has lived and worked in several cities, including Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, and areas of Arkansas.

Angela Davis Johnson was born in Orlando, Florida.^[1] Later, she moved with her family to Virginia, where she attended Governor's School for the Arts, an art magnet high school in Norfolk, Virginia.^[2] Her early interest in art developed under the influence of her mother, who encouraged her and her siblings to engage in creative activities such as singing, reading, and whittling, and provided them with art supplies.^[3]

Johnson's ancestry which includes practitioners of midwifery and healing, is said to have influenced her artistic themes.^[4] Her works primarily focus on the social and historical challenges faced by African Americans. She states, "The ways that we've been able to withstand, the ways that we've been able to become our water, become our rain; how we've navigated this space that we're in, this time, and have been doing it through our songs and our caretaking of one another."

Johnson is reported to have expressed the intended message of her work:

I want people to feel the complexity of the embodied experience of Black people in this world. I want people to feel that when they see my work. We’re not just superheroes. We are all things. We are souls living this life. I want people to experience that in my work, feel the depths of that. I want people to recognize and feel their soul. See the thing beyond the construct, which is light, you know. To me, it’s like the past, present, and future. It’s all happening right now in this moment. I want people to feel that when they come by my work, when they’re away from it. I want people to witness all of that in all of our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) works.

One of Johnson's paintings, “An Open Mouth Creek”, was described by The New York Times as depicting "an African American girl with sad eyes, blue hair, and whose mouth is shut, though she looks like she wants to talk. It is a piece that depicts the silencing of Black women throughout history."^[5] According to The Sumter Item, "What first strikes the eye and consciousness when encountering Johnson's work is the scope, the scenery, and the subjects."^[6]

Her style incorporates scraps of fabric into many of her oil paintings as homage to her mother, a seamstress, as well as to introduce more humble materials into fine arts spaces.^[7]

• 2020/21 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellowship
• 2018 MINT ATL Leap Year Fellowship
• 2017 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant Nominee
• 2017 Ensemble Theater Grant Awardee
• 2016 Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Nominee
• 2015 Alternate Roots/Joan Mitchell Visual Art Scholar

• 2022 Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL
• 2022 The New Freedom Project/ BAIA, Atlanta, GA
• 2019 Tempus Project, Tampa, FL
• 2019 Hampshire College, Amherst, MA
• 2019 Fallawayinto Intensive, Philadelphia, PA
• 2018 Hambidge Arts Center Residency, Rabun County, GA
• 2018 MINT Leap Year, Atlanta, GA

• Angela Davis Johnson website
• Angela Davis Johnson Instagram page