When I first encountered Laurel Johannesson’s artworks, I was intrigued by their spell and meticulous detail. The prints, photographs and videos are graceful, dreamlike, even haunting.
Given her early years as a swimmer and dancer, it’s understandable that her images of figures aren’t about appearances, rather how it feels to be in your body, moving through the elements of water and air. The settings, whether a specific place or a more abstract montage, carry an evocative, metaphoric sense of place between land and sea: a boundary between two worlds where tension and beauty hang in the balance.
Johannesson is one of those rare artists who grew up in a small town on the prairies, but was drawn to a faraway culture where she found a creative home base. As a young adult, she met a friend from Greece, determined to learn the alphabet, then the language. She went on to engage in artist residencies and visit regularly, gathering material for her art during the summer months on break from teaching at the Alberta University of the Arts.
Her current project centres on Iceland, her ancestral home. There, a lagoon named Jökulsárlón grows as the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier recedes from the Atlantic, calving icebergs that break into chunks of ancient ice that wash up on the black sand beach like diamonds. Johannesson is blending, animating and layering audio, video, and still images with hand-painted elements and underwater photographs and video from Greece. After four years, the experimental film, Deluge, promises to be stunning.
-Written by Katherine Ylitalo, independent curator and writer
one of Laurel’s solo exhibitions at Herringer Kiss Gallery.
Exhibition.
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Which ’hood are you in?
My studio is in Bowness, a neighbourhood with a rich history and a bit of an edge. Being next to the Bow River, I often begin the day bike riding through the park before getting to work in the studio.
What do you do?
I’m a lens-based visual artist working primarily with photography and moving image. My work often explores themes of temporality, place, memory, and the body, using experimental and poetic strategies to engage with both physical and emotional landscapes. I’m also a professor in the School of Visual Arts at the Alberta University of the Arts, where my research and teaching focus on expanded drawing, contemporary lens-based practices, and the evolving role of moving images in art.
What are you currently working on?
I’m in post-production on an experimental film. I’ve spent part of the last two years collecting images and footage for it in Iceland and Greece. I’m also working on a series of large-scale photographic composites that blur the boundaries between constructed image and lived experience.
Where can we find your work?
I’m represented by Herringer Kiss Gallery in Calgary and Artpowher Contemporary in Zurich, Switzerland. My projects are also featured in film and new media festivals and exhibitions internationally. Most recently, at the Athens Digital Arts Festival in Greece and Photo Basel in Switzerland. For a broader view of my practice, including works in progress and exhibition updates, visit my website or follow along on Instagram.
