Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past Archives

Iskra Johnson and Alfred Harris in Intersect at SAM Gallery

August 1, 2023 by Iskra Leave a Comment

I am excited to show a new abstract body of work created from my calligraphic brush painting. It is an honor to show with Alfred Harris, a longtime favorite Northwest artist whose work always surprises. I look forward to seeing you August 5th!

Waterfall 1/1, Mixed Media Archival Pigment Print on German Etching, 24 x 35

INTERSECT

AUG 5 2023

SEATTLE ART MUSEUM

SAM GALLERY

2 PM – 4 PM

Join us as we celebrate the opening of Intersect at SAM Gallery.

Artists Alfred Harris and Iskra Johnson combine techniques and materials which are altered, layered and built up to create finished works which harmoniously intersect in this collection.

Meet the artists at the opening reception of Intersect on Saturday, August 5.

Seattle Art Museum Gallery Hours: 10-5 Wednesday – Sunday. Located on the street level of the Seattle Art Museum, on 1st Avenue between Union and University Streets. 206.654.3120

May 1, 2023 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Every Night Another, from the Sunset Suite

Landscape Reimagined

Opening Saturday May 6th

From 5-7 PM

Featuring Iskra Johnson, CA Pierce & Danielle Bodine

Museo Gallery, 215 First Street, Langley, WA, 98260

I hope to see you Saturday night for the Langley Artwalk and the opening night of Museo’s May show! I am happy to be in great company, with CA Pierce’s gentle atmospheric landscapes and Danelle Bodine’s mixed media sculptures.

The gallery will have additional unframed prints from the new Sunset Suite and botanicals that have not been shown outside of my studio. The Sunset Suite is a series of 7 prints, each one unique. As with several of the other landscapes in this exhibit the work is composed from my ink paintings, drawing from imagination and memory. See the collection of my work available from Museo here.

Windswept The Bluff at Ebey's Landing

Windswept, The View From Ebey’s Landing

https://iskrafineart.com/8783-2/

The Wabi Sabi Suite of New Botanical Cards and Upcoming Shows

February 8, 2023 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Summerlight Botanical Card

Everything is in flux in late February, not quite winter, not yet spring. The juncos still sit on top of the echinacea forgetting December’s snows and pecking vainly for seeds. The willows hang above the water’s edge remembering autumn, and the wild plum cannot wait for the warm winds that bring spring’s color and perfumes. A new set of cards from the Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena is out today and available in my shop. I am calling this set of images The Wabi Sabi Suite, in recognition of the sense of impermanence that colors February’s mood.

The images were originally made as transfer prints using my original paintings or photographs printed onto rag paper with a solvent. The process is unpredictable and brings a granular texture and soft irregular edges to the images. “Wild Plum” is particularly soft and dreamy, as its original source was a 40 yearold film photograph with the distinctive soft focus only film can create. If you are interested in the large size of Summerlight, it is framed in maple and available from my studio. A very limited edition of 3, of which one is left, the image is 16 x 21 on a sheet of 30 x 22 Arches 88.

Summerlight in Frame Summerlight, available from my studio

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New Calligraphic Abstractions from Iskra Fine Art

November 12, 2022 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Industrial Noise Abstract — Industrial Noise, Abstract Calligraphic © Iskra Johnson

For me there is no more valuable way to start the morning in the studio than by reading poet Jane Hirshfield, and her book Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World. I think it possible that I will still be reading this book, quarter-page by quarter-page, for decades; her words are so resonant and visual they transform my world each time I read them. This morning’s find was a passage on subtlety:

“ Subtlety’s etymological roots lie in the loom-woven cloth. It is the name we give to thought that is both finely textured and ranging, able to bring disparate and multiple qualities into the unified, usable fabric of a new whole. The uncertain is subtlety’s inscape: what is woven has – and needs – gaps. In subtle response, thought is stitched into place with its own undertows, opposites, and extensions, by a mind that questions and crosshatches its statements and feelings. Language itself is subtle by nature, multi-stranded of meaning – and what is good poetry if not language awake to its own powers?”

Abstract Landscape Collage by Iskra — (Detail) Abstract Landscape, paper collage © Iskra Johnson

Although my work ranges over many themes, the overarching theme may be the means of expression itself: language. Even when the framework is not visible, my background [Read more…]

Elusionary Landscapes: New Drawings and Collages from the Rural Heartlands

September 29, 2022 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Symmetries Interrupted a barn collage landscape — Symmetries Interrupted, limited edition archival print from original photography and painting ©Iskra Johnson Available here

An entire season has passed since I last posted here. It has been a long sun-filled summer filled with concentrated studio time and a pivotal week spent in Eastern Washington in the long awaited Tieton Residency. A dear friend moved to Tieton in Eastern Washington two years ago, with the intention of creating a residency in her farmhouse for visiting artists and writers. The pandemic intervened and the residency did not happen for two years – until this August! I had the farmhouse, the upstairs studio, and the landscape to myself during the day, with hours to wander, photograph and draw. It was an unforgettable time of slow communion with my pencil and camera, with evenings spent in good company getting to know the Yakima Valley in new ways with my hosts.

Drawing in situ, a skill I had forgotten, and a way of being that feels like home.

Yakima Valley Cuisine Scene, local, fresh, innovative. Top row, two very different approaches to the idea of soup; below, the wildly wonderful counter at Crafted, with chef-owner Dan Kokomo keeping his charm and his cool on a busy Saturday night.

The farmhouse is situated on a road with a front row seat to sunrises and sunsets over the orchard valley. The muse of the property is The White Barn, which I have taken roughly a hundred photographs of (and which is available as part of an ongoing portfolio of Western Photography.) The architecture on the immediate property was my primary focus during the residency, with road trips to document alternate forms of my favorite structure, The Shed, in its native habitat. During this time I used drawing to sharpen my concentration, and apps like SnapSeed to experiment with new ways of combining digital and drawn imagery, which became final works in the studio once I got home.