Stephanie Anne Johnson

Early life and education

Stephanie Anne Johnson was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1952. Her mother, Virginia E. Johnson, was a teacher and social worker who also worked with the American Negro Theater in Harlem, and her father was a child psychologist in the Bronx.

Johnson attended Emerson College, completing her B.F.A in theatre in 1974. At Emerson she took a class in lighting design. After college, her first jobs were doing lighting design. This led to a 40-year career as a theatrical lighting designer and eventually inspired her work in the visual arts. In the early 1990s she decided to pursue higher education in the Fine Arts and in 1994 she received her M.F.A. from San Francisco State University.

As of 2016, Johnson is a Professor of Visual and Public Art Department at California State University, Monterey Bay.

Work

Johnson has principally built her art reputation around public performance art. Her art frequently focuses on themes about historical and cultural dynamics, including slavery, discrimination of minorities, immigration, gender discrimination and Native American issues.

Her sculptural installations often employ light to create metaphor and evoke emotion, putting the skills she acquired as a professional lighting designer to use in her practice as an art maker.

Awards, fellowships and residencies

In 1982 Johnson was National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient. In 1995 she completed an 11-month studio residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts.