Johansson Projects presents Earth Black Lipstick, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Barbados-based artist Sheena Rose. The exhibition runs from February 25 – April 1, 2023 with an artist talk with Sheena and Autumn Breon on Friday, March 3, 5:30pm, reception following until 8pm. Combining representation, abstraction, and bracing color, Sheena Rose captures the lost art of leisure. Her paintings depict Black bodies in slow motion: playing tennis or pool, lounging around having drinks or perhaps grooving to music. Proper leisure time is what nourishes the human spirit. In America, sites of leisure for Black people have more often than not been inaccessible and racially charged. While Rose’s treatment of color and flatness of paint capture one’s attention, it is the content of her work that invites further thought: What does it mean for Black bodies to experience leisure when to be Black in America is to live through a continuous cycle of grind culture, protest, survival, and exhaustion?    Read more…

Autumn Breon creates art that investigates the visual vocabulary of liberation through a queer Black feminist lens. A graduate of Stanford University, she studied Aeronautics & Astronautics and researched aeronautical astrobiology applications for NASA. Autumn’s examination of contemporary art throughout the African Diaspora began when she was living and working in South Africa. Through inquiry-based interaction, she invites audiences to participate in the examination of freedom, intersectional identities, and Diasporic memory. Using a variety of media – including installation, performance, and collage – her qualitative and quantitative research processes provide the foundation for reimagining and creating systems that make current oppressive systems obsolete. Breon’s work has been recognized by Artsy, the Smithsonian Institution, Aspen Institute, TED, the Obama Foundation, Artnet, Time Magazine, and the New York Times.

Johansson Projects is open to the public Thur – Sat 1-5pm.