Iskra Fine Art

  • Prints
    • The Tarmac Residency: Airport Landscapes
    • Ink Painting Abstractions
    • Immersions | At The Shore
    • ColorBath: Images of the Harbor
    • The Floating World
    • Industrial Strength | Urban Industrial Landscape
    • The Scaffold
    • Industrial Pastorale: The Rural/Urban Landscape
    • Botanical Prints | The Natural World
    • Construction | Reconstruction : Urban Landscape
    • Infrastructure
  • Drawings
    • Pencil Drawings: Pandemic Pause
    • Drawings in Dust 1
    • Signs & Symbols (Archive)
    • Botanical Drawings (Archive)
  • Photography
    • Seattle Waterfront Park Photography
    • Architectural Photography | Construction Sites
    • American West Landscape Photography
  • Mixed Media
    • Modern Botanical | Mixed Media on Plaster
    • From the Sea | Water Paintings
    • Sleep Studies
  • Journals
    • Wayfinding Journal (Archive)
  • Shop
  • About
    • Contact
  • Blog

About

Iskra Johnson

A R T I S T

My art practice is rooted in the traditions of contemplative art, influenced greatly by my years as a student of Asian calligraphy and my design career as a calligrapher and letterform artist. I use many different media, but in all of them I am very attentive to the language of mark-making and surface. As principal of Iskra Design I worked with the alphabet for many years, providing custom letterform solutions for book covers, logotypes, and package branding. In the first decade of my career I immersed myself in Asian calligraphy, haiga, T’ai Chi and sumie painting, studying with Lucy Liu, John Leong and Sensei Ishii among other teachers. After this period of Eastern influence I went to the University of Washington, completing a degree in painting with a secondary focus on printmaking (BFA). I draw inspiration from the interplay between the contemplative practices of Asian art and a perhaps more Western need for invention and uncharted chaos.

Iskra Painting in the studioI bring my background in calligraphy into all of my work

Although my first love is printmaking, due to early exposure to solvents I have been unable to work in a traditional printmaking studio or with oil-based inks, and this has pushed me to devise my own methods to create the look and process of printmaking without a press. In much of my work I approach my surface as though it is a stone or metal plate, but the “plate” becomes the final piece of art, reflecting the same characteristics of mark-making found in etching and lithography. I love surfaces that are bitten and etched, indirect and calligraphic mark making, and experimental processes of monoprint which embed an element of surprise. I also adore flat screaming color and the graphic qualities of serigraph and stencils. I move between visual languages, always looking for an ambiguity of pictorial space and unexpected juxtapositions. For the past five years I have focused primarily on how the atmosphere of emotion intersects with architectural structure. In my series about construction sites and the street I use contemporary digital photography, imaging software and found and made surface to explore nostalgia, loss, place and displacement in the rapidly changing urban environment. For me Photoshop is like playing jazz: it is the ultimate tool for improvisation. It allows me to deconstruct images into layers of light and color, line and shape, and reassemble them into imaginary worlds. The way the layers interact with each other opens up a new kind of pictorial composition unavailable in any other medium. The physical form of my digitally composed work may be archival pigment print, transfer print, or mixed media. In digitally printed work my goal is to produce a work on paper, an artifact incorporating all the finesse and obsession with surface of traditional printmaking. The resulting images have a mysterious hybrid quality that is often taken for silkscreen or lithography.

Iskra Print Studio processGerman Etching, my favorite paper, beloved for its rich surface and the way it holds ink.

Recently I have begun a shift away from printmaking towards more direct processes, using mixed media on Venetian plaster and pure painting. In going back to what are in some ways traditional image media I am still very interested in what I think of as “photographicness.” This is a relatively modern phenomena, in which photography, which originally set out to imitate life and “painting from life,” has now become our visual reference point as a global culture. How does a way of seeing that is mediated by incredibly complex technology enter into our psychology as a collective/yet personal emotional filter? How does it influence our sense of what is “real,” “personal” or “authentic?” How do the qualities of surface in the daily interface of screens, phones, camera and facsimile begin to define what is beauty in other media? These are some of the questions guiding my work. If you are interested in a studio visit or in purchasing prints or paintings you may write to me through the contact form in the navigation bar or email me at iskra (at) iskrafineart.com. My work may also be seen and purchased through Seattle Art Museum Gallery.

Iskra studio officeMy office, where the digital alchemy happens.

 

SOLO/TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2018     ColorBath, Taste at SAM, Seattle Washington

2018     Industrial Pastorale, Perry & Carlson, Mt. Vernon, Washington

2014     Excavations: The Big Dig & Other Stories, Zeitgeist, Seattle, Washington

2012     The Black and White Show, Fraker/Scott, (two-person), Seattle, Washington

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2020     Rhythms of Water, Museo Gallery, Langley, Washington

2019      Under the Influence (Of Asia), Seattle Art Museum Gallery, Seattle Washington

2017      Industrial Strength, Seattle Art Museum Gallery, Seattle Washington (Three-person)

2017      Splash, Chittendon Locks Centennial, Seattle, WA

2017     Make America Create Again, COCA, Seattle, Washington

2017     The Winter Show, Museo Gallery, Langley, Washington

2016     Tech and the Democratization of Art, Galvanize, Seattle Washington

2016     Contemporary Printmakers, Seattle Art Museum Gallery, Seattle Washington

2016     Confluence: The Duwamish River Project, Columbia City Gallery, Seattle Washington

2016     Annual Artist Exhibition, Kirkland Art Center, Seattle, Washington

2016     The Garden Show, Museo Gallery, Langley, Washington

2015     Seattle Seen, Linda Hodges Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2015     Zeitgeist, Arts at the Port, Anacortes, Washington, Stefano Catalani, curator

2015     Waterways, Alexis Hotel, Seattle, Washington

2014     Making & Breaking, Linda Hodges, Seattle, Washington

2014     Any Day, Artists on Death, Steele Gallery, Gage Academy, Seattle, Washington

2014      Seattle Art Museum Gallery, 14 new architectural works for May exhibition

2013     World/City: Exploring the Architecture of Global Relationships, Seattle Architectural Foundation, Seattle, Washington

2013     New Media: Digital Art, Bainbridge Arts & Crafts, Bainbridge Island, Washington

2013     Painters Under Pressure: A Decade of Discussion, Phinney Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2013     Seattle Art Museum Gallery, new architectural images for February Exhibition

2013     Watercolor Exhibit, Steele Gallery at Gage Academy, Seattle, Washington

2013     The Bleak View, Prographica Fine Works on Paper, Seattle, Washington

2012     Contemplations of Nature, Seattle Art Museum Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2011     Icons, Fraker/Scott, Seattle, Washington

2010     Safe Harbor, Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, Port Angeles, Washington

2010     ArtSpace Printmaking and Photography Exhibition, Richmond, Virginia

2010     Seattle Print Arts, Patricia Cameron Gallery, Seattle, Washington

2009     Printmaking Exhibition, Wuhan Art Museum, Wuhan, China

2008     The Art of Democracy, Two Wall Gallery,  Vashon, Washington

2008     Collective Visions Gallery Washington State Juried Competition, Bremerton, Washington

 Iskra Fine Art Studio

Studio photos and portrait by Ben Calhoun

INSTAGRAM

I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in wh I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in which I let the story of place, museums, witness and culture unfold as it wishes. It’s an old-style post before I had “newsletter consciousness.” (Sigh….when you send out a post with one image and a show announcement and maybe five more words and someone writes, “perfect length to view on my phone” you may be tempted to perform more of the same and forget the original muse, born long before success was judged by how well thoughts fit within 2x5” square inches. A few excerpts here and first link in bio to read the entirety. Witness and elegy is where I seem to live. Painting is acrylic ink on panel, a piece I have yet to resolve but like to see into for the next step.
If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s still yours! Yesterday I started early and went to an island in the middle of the blue sea to be in beauty and celebrate life. As we walked the beach we met a young boy also born on 9.11. His parents had brought him to Vashon for the same reason, and he had found a perfect moon shell for his own birthday present sent from the sea. It was such a lovely moment, to remember the world is young no matter how old we are.
Taking the last golden days of summer for study. T Taking the last golden days of summer for study. The Volunteer Park museum has an exhibit showing the influence of the Edo arts in Japan on Toulouse-Lautrec and I went to see it last weekend. As you can see from these images, I seem to have no interest in Lautrec— True! But these details of woodcuts and paintings on silk fill me with a quiet rapture.
Walking Meditation Walking Meditation
RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid
Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone and light.

Contact Iskra

Phone: (206) 367-2643
Email: iskra(at)iskradesign.com

PDF Resume

Iskra Johnson, artist resume

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Join Iskra’s Mailing List

Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to receive show announcements, first peek at new work and my semi-monthly blog by email. I primarily use the blog for news and updates but by signing up you will also receive the occasional newsletter and special offers for items in my shop.

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