The Bite Magazine - Autmn/Winter 2020 - Issue 28

biteartistprofile was having a difficult time capturing the feeling of the boarding house in photos, so I decided to build it as a dollhouse with sev- eral figures inside. It allowed me to recapture the quiet intimacy of the house.” ‘House on Fire’ is an ongoing project that centres on Sarah Anne’s memory of her grandmother, who underwent brutal experimental treatment for depression and passed away over fifteen years before the project’s initiation. ‘Arctic Wonderland’ (2010-11) saw her take photos in the Arctic Circle and altered them using paint, Photoshop, and other techniques including embossing and printmaking. “I do this to create a more honest image,” she said. “To show not just what I saw, but how I feel about what I saw.” So for Sarah Anne, it isn’t enough to take a photograph and show what something looks like. Expanding on the meaning behind her comment, “I always felt a deep frustration with the limitations of photography” she told NGC Magazine , “I want to reveal what it felt like as well: the emotional, the physiological, or even just a straight-up sensation. I’m interested in revealing the stuff just below the surface that you can’t see with your eyes or capture with the lens.” The artist has exhibited her work at many establishments in- cluding the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Massachusetts, Unit- ed States; Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris, France; National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art in Winnipeg, and Art Gallery of Ontar- io in Toronto, Canada; and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. Her latest work, Woodland sees the artist incorporate paint and other materials into her photographs of nature. There is a sense of connecting and belonging to the landscape that depicts trees from the forests in her native Manitoba. These printed photo- graphs of trees are developed from the artist’s feelings of inti- macy and integration with the natural world. Taking inspira- tion from the transcendent yet invisible aspects of nature, Sarah Anne transforms the prints into something phenomenal. The artist creates mediums that, in her view, depict nature as “more truthful” than it appears to the naked eye. It embraces the traditional knowledge of land passed down through gener- ations of indigenous peoples, to the influence of ancient trees on sacred architecture and modern scientific research testing the ability of trees to communicate intelligently. Here you will see speckles of oil and acrylic paint, brass and gold leaves, and sometimes holographic stickers that bring out the colouration of the pictures. This magical kaleidoscope of colour nestled in among the trees is almost like a fairytale of dappled light, glass shards, flutter- ing confetti, swarms of butterflies, and stained glass windows. Whilst some of the photography shows the beauty of the trees with the backdrop of the blue sky, others appear coarse and wild as if presenting two sides of nature. Nonetheless, it has an an- imated feel that projects the eyes over every intricate detail of the leaves, branches, and negative space. At the back of Yossi Milo Gallery, the artwork on the four walls of the space is matched to the four seasons. As Loring Kno- blauch of Collector Daily describes it, “in winter, the light is crisper, and the snowy trees encourage the twilight tones of blue and purple to come forth. In spring, the colour shards seem like fresh blossoms, buoyed by the optimism of new growth. In summer, the thickness of the foliage creates green Edens filled with colour that tumbles down through the shadows. And in autumn, the palette turns toward yellow and orange, the colour fragments seeming to fall like leaves. In each case, John- son is sensitively responding to nature, teasing out additions that match the rhythms of the changing seasons.” The writer concludes with, “The works capture a sense of the forest being alive, filled with hidden enchantments that the artist has now made visible - and they are places we’d like to escape to again, so we can be enveloped in their magic.” Sarah Beck of Museé wrote that the artist’s current exhibition “has a clear focus on the natural world that is typical of John- son’s work. Her landscapes are whimsical and light-hearted at first glance - with bright colours and interesting abstractions, she illustrates a world which reads as distinct from the one we live in yet also does not feel too distant.” Perhaps Sarah Anne intended for the viewer to step through a door to experience this reimagined world through her eyes. However, the artist stresses she is trying to bridge a gap between what we see and what is felt, so she doesn't consider this an imaginary world. “I think of it as being truer to my reality. My goal is to create a more personal kind of photo documentation. Documentary photography has always had a sticky relation- ship with the ‘truth’ or with being ‘actual’. Photographs look like reality, so for a long time, we thought of them as factual documents. But photographs always take on the agenda of the photographer.” Sarah Anne Johnson's Woodland exhibition is available to view online at Yossi Milo Gallery until January 2021. https://yossimilo.com © Sarah Anne Johnson, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York