“For their very first showing at FOG FOCUS, Oakland-based Johansson Projects featured several works by local artist Miguel Arzabe, who makes colorful woven paintings drawing on the textile tradition of his Latinx Bolivian heritage.” Lauren Gallow for Whitewall Magazine | 5 Favorites from the 10th Edition of FOG Design+Art | January 24, 2024 Link

“…it’s heartening to see another East Bay institution, Johansson Projects, mount an exhibition that reflects a similar ethos, seen in current (2022-23) works by Dance Doyle, Terri Friedman and Susie Taylor — artists whose approaches to weaving are as radical as they are unalike.” David M. Roth | A Festival of Fiber Art | December 6, 2023  Link

“Color is a beautiful language, not often well spoken, but “Animales Familiares,” on exhibit at Johansson Projects, is fluent in it. Arzabe’s visual lingua franca is intuitively graspable by anyone despite the works’ complex geometric grammar. And if his paintings’ tactile-looking geometries seem woven, that’s because they are. After replicating modernist paintings, Arzabe has them disassembled into lengths of canvas he then reassembles, weaving them into patterns that reference the textile crafts of his Bolivian heritage.” Agustín Maes | Miguel Arzabe’s Kaleidoscopic Thunderbolt | October 23, 2023  Link

“In Miguel Arzabe’s bestiaries, wide-eyed owls, pink pumas, and whale sharks emerge from planes of woven acrylic. The Oakland-based artist draws on his Bolivian roots and Andean textile traditions as he laces strips of sliced paintings into landscapes occupied by creatures both real and mythological. Arzabe’s most recent body of work, Animales Familiares, brings these beasts to the fore through vivid planes of blurred Earth and sky.” Grace Ebert | Fantastic Creatures and Common Animals Materialize in Miguel Arzabe’s Woven Bestiaries | September 12, 2023 Link

“Gregory Rick’s latest exhibition, Running Wild at Johansson Projects, showcases the artist’s unique approach to history painting. Through cacophonous compositions of bodies and objects, he explores different scenes in the history of empires, offering poetic analyses of American imperialism and the aesthetics of violence.” | Juxtapoz Magazine | “An Unflinching Look at American Imperialism and the Aesthetics of Violence| April 6, 2023 Link

“The award is a validation that the ideas I’ve been working on are deemed to be an important part of the conversation,” the Oakland artist said. “This is an exploration of my own political and racial identity. I never learned anything in school about Andean weaving — everything I learned about that I had to seek out on my own so I could put those aspects of my identity into a productive confrontation.” Joshua Kosman | SF Chronicle Datebook | “3 Bay Area visual artists win 2022 Artadia Awards: ‘I’m honored and a little bit in shock’” | July 6, 2022 Link

“I was largely taught a male canon in art history and contemporary art history,” [Madeline Donahue] said, “and as an art student in undergrad, there was this expectation that people who identify as women or queer weren’t talked to. My work is responding to a very serious, very patriarchal art world, and thinking that I’d never be accepted by it. And that actually gave me a lot of room to just experiment and be myself.” Veronica Esposito | The Guardian | “Punchline: celebrating artists who use humor in their work” | July 6, 2022  Link

“As a new mom myself, I’m realizing how rare it is to find representations of motherhood in our culture that feel authentic to the messy, yet beautiful, experience of it. Madeline’s paintings, ceramics, and drawings encapsulate just that. Now more than ever, as my mind reels in despair over the idea that a woman’s autonomy—her decision to be a mother, and when and how—would ever be in question, these representations matter.” Nadine Zylberberg | All’s Well Interview: “Painting Motherhood” | June 29, 2022  Link

“Brightly colored wallpaper, a blanket made of crochet granny squares, post-dinner party mess, a bathroom sink cluttered with personal care products, sunlight bathing the uncleared breakfast dishes, a pile of open art books — the stuff of life. Sophie Treppendahl’s paintings capture the colorful existence of a shut-in trapped by the pandemic who has decided to focus on all that remains after so much has been stripped away. Her work pairs seamlessly with Nimah Gobir’s portraits, which have the snapshot feel of vivid memory. A couple reclining on an overstuffed sofa. Grandma proudly holding up a new baby. A girl in plaid school uniform smiling shyly. A man peacefully soaking in life with eyes closed.”  sfarts.org | Mark Taylor, SF/Arts Curator | May 30, 2022 Link

“There may be no figures in Sophie Treppendahl’s paintings, but their presence lingers everywhere you look.  These lived-in interiors, bathed in warm light, are full of books, flowers, plants and comfortable furniture.  But with a single exception, they contain no people.  Wine glasses and coffee mugs and the soft blue light of a television spilling across a night-time scene suggest that someone has just left the room.  But really, a full cast of characters is still on stage, populating these interiors with the secret life that things have in the absence of their owners.” squarecylinder.com | Maria Porges | May 23, 2022  Link

“I love textile and I love a grid — works that are inherently precise, ordered, and meticulous in their construction. I immediately think of Annie Albers here who said, ‘simplicity is not simpleness but clarified vision.’ Susie Taylor is a Bay Area-based artist, and looks not only to Albers but also Sol Lewitt, Agnes Martin, Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly. Her work was recently included in Material Meaning: A Living Legacy of Anni Albers at Craft in America Center in Los Angeles.” Phillips.com | Sophia Kinell | May 20, 2022

“The last two years have me (and all of us) feeling isolated, and I don’t think I realized how insular my practice was becoming until recently. This book, Funny Weather by Olivia Laing, was a healthy departure from my own head into someone else’s practice and a humbling reminder of the necessity of art, for all of us, in the face of challenging times.”  LitHub.com | “14 Contemporary Artists on How Reading Influences Their Work” | March 2022 via  Platform  Link

“Girard described his work as multicultural, curious, and enigmatic. He is specifically interested in how psilocybin, ayahuasca, and other forms of plant medicine can inform the creative process over time. His colorful, organic shapes and markings on canvas reflect a kind of tableau vivant indicative of this observational exploration.” 48Hills | Mary Corbin | Dec 7, 2021 Link

“Coming from a multigenerational lineage of artists and craftspeople, Berkeley, California-based artist A. Kori Girard was encouraged to pursue any hands-on creative practice he was interested in from an early age. ‘Art was synonymous with living and I became comfortable working across mediums, including drawing, painting, collage, wood and ceramic to name a few,’ he explains. In his recent work, he uses watered down acrylics on paper panels and canvas to mimic the freedom and various opacities of watercolor.” BOOOOOOOM | Artist Spotlight: A. Kori Girard | Oct 11, 2021  Link

“Following a year of pandemic isolation, Los Angeles artist Robert Pokorny created the work on display in “Thinking, Staring & Smoking,” a solo exhibition with paintings and drawings at Johansson Project. The unconventional, abstract portraits (with notes of Cubism) are meant to depict allegories of confinement: Some subjects look pensive, others conflicted, and many of the male figures seem to channel frustration and fear through their expressions.” SF Chronicle | Tony Bravo |  Sep 06, 2021 link

“Pokorny is one of those enigmatic, hyper prolific and hard to define figures, capable of working in a variety of styles and techniques, all in the same, high quality manner. From clean line or geo form-based depictions, over cubist-like portrayals, all the way to raw illustration-like or gesture-based renditions, the LA-based artist is continuously exploring a wide range of styles and techniques. Focused on continuously perfecting all of their aspects, from the sharpness of the line, over gradients and surfaces, to the compositional approaches, he is regularly paying tribute to some of his favorite artists and their work while capturing the reality of life around him. And it’s that imminent source of inspiration, which got turned upside down in the past year and half, that prompted a development of his arguably most focused body of work to date.” Juxtapoz | Sasha Bogojev | July 27, 2021  link

“…Arzabe’s work is very much of this moment, reflecting a combination of influences and concerns, a mingling of materials and techniques that intertwine the ancient and the modern, the physical, mental and spiritual realms as well coming into play. Created during the time of COVID, it is infused as well with an undercurrent of uncertainty, wariness. Reflecting on that aspect, the artist stated that he found immersion in his complex process allowed him to focus his energy into something positive, and it is that resilient spirit of hope which resonates throughout.” – Barbara Morris | July 2, 2021  link

“…Arzabe’s energetic patterns and meticulous crafting present a formally strong show where the artist’s process of making, unmaking, and reassembly speaks to the hybridity and nonlinearity of traditions, narratives, and place. Moreover, Arzabe’s show demonstrates the artist’s keen ability to push viewers back to take in the whole while also pulling them into to inspect the details, where from both perspectives the view is entrancing….” 48 Hills | Genevieve Quick | June 9, 2021 link 

“The pantheistic worldview of Bolivia’s indigenous Sacaca people features divine chimeras such as a half-puma, half-eagle, and hybrid/mutations like the four-headed condor, the beast that lends its name to Oakland artist Miguel Arzabe’s solo exhibition. These “monstrous birds” often appear as patterns on the country’s textiles. Combine these ideas and you will arrive at the inspiration behind the artist’s practice. Arzabe explores his Bolivian heritage through weaving. The four heads in this show represent two artists whose work inspired the paintings Arzabe creates that are then sliced up and woven in combination to be experienced and interpreted by the viewer.” SF/Monthly insert for the New York Times | Mark Taylor |  June 2021  link 

“At Johansson Projects, the exhibition version of Pansy Twist offers its own compelling call to action in its offer of D.I.T., or “do it together” (compared to D.I.Y.’s plea to “do it yourself”)—a celebration of the possibilities of community. As Purnell puts it: “We hope somebody sees it and has a Pansy Twist in their town.” KQED Arts | Ruth Gebreyesus | October 24, 2019 Link

“…Terry’s abstract constructions…may sometimes suggest architecture, perhaps of the unwieldy, tottering, gravity-defying sort that exists only in dreams. But they defy expectations of real-world stability or inhabitability: They’re more like cartoon buildings…they exude a kind of happy acceptance of entropy and overglued joints…Terry’s artworks may challenge the strait-laced, materialistic, bourgeois sensibility…but their cheerful absurdity asks us to laugh with them, and maybe at ourselves, too, as equally contingent, ramshackle beings…” Oakland Magazine | DeWitt Cheng | September 10, 2019 Link

“Consistent in its effort to test assumptions and complacency is the gallery Johansson Projects, [at] 2300 Telegraph Ave. Known for its work to bring regional artists to a national platform, the gallery is showing the work of Claire Colette, who earned a master’s degree from Mills College in 2013, through Oct. 28.” San Francisco Chronicle: SF Gate | Charles Desmarais | November 29, 2017 Link

“…A small, hip venue, Johansson Projects’ avant-garde works have created a reliable track record of ingeniously devised, contemporary art exhibits that never cease to surprise the audience…Oakland has become a mecca for up-and-coming artists. Johansson Projects has made hay of the influx of new talent, and established itself as one of the most consistently lauded independent galleries in the Bay Area…” Bay Area For Sale | Marina Jokic | Link

“Johansson Projects has unique architecture, and they have repeatedly used the space in interesting ways…Sennish’s work plays off the gallery’s architectural mix, as well as complimenting its urban location. Her stark and disjointed objects act as remnants of experiential dissidence…” Link Glossary Magazine | March 2016

“…one of the most fascinating contemporary art galleries in Oakland is Johansson Projects….Exhibitions here are typically displayed and organized in inventive, out of the box ways so as to provide visitors with unparalleled experiences that cannot be found anywhere else in the Bay Area…Attending these exhibitions is a terrific way to engage with the Bay Area art scene, uncovering some stars of the future and also appreciating the work of established artists…Always seeking to push the boundaries and stretch the limits of contemporary art appreciation and curation, Johansson Projects always has exciting events and exhibitions on the horizon, constantly offering bold new experiences and fascinating glimpses into the world of contemporary art through the unique lens of its Telegraph Ave gallery. Even for those with just a passing interest in contemporary art, this is an unmissable location…” Link July 2019

“Oakland, a fresh face on the art scene, continues to be a growing force. Take Johansson Projects, a small, hip venue on Telegraph Avenue whose reliable track record of ingeniously devised, contemporary art exhibitions delivers the unexpected.” Link Sura Wood | The Bay Area Reporter | 2014

“…Johansson Projects Gallery is the gateway to the neighborhood’s art spaces — hip enough to draw fashionable grad students and host rocking parties, professional enough to garner national press. Expect fresh, meticulously well-installed artwork that’s experimental but not obtuse, intellectually engaging but not impaled on ivory-tower exclusivity, often local but never provincial. The facade is inconspicuous, so look for the old-Hollywood-style spotlight…”Link Kris Vagner | East Bay Express | 2011

“…Johansson Projects, has quietly but quickly won a reputation as one of the Bay Area venues to watch for new art…” Link – Kenneth Baker | San Francisco Chronicle December | 2009

“Not yet two years old, Johansson Projects has established itself as one of the most consistently compelling independent galleries in the Bay Area, showcasing new and emergent artists in thoughtfully curated pairings and theme-based shows. While many galleries chase after marketable talent or formalist trends, with little attention paid to longer-term curatorial vision, Johansson has cultivated a distinct and cohesive aesthetic that remains open and varied, in conversation with contemporary art movements both local and national. “Collective Compulsions,” the gallery’s first major survey show of its artists, provides an excellent opportunity to see a broad swath of the range of artists featured at Johansson over the last year and a half. On display were a variety of ‘compulsions,’ as the show’s title suggests, in that almost all of Johansson’s artists evince an almost-obsessive attention to detail, from meticulous markings to finely-hewn sculptural investigations into material and surface…” – David Buuck | Artweek | April 2009

“… Johansson Projects in Oakland remains among my very favorite spaces. Dynamic founder Kimberly Johansson has built a gallery on the corner of 23rd and Telegraph that would be as much at home in San Francisco or New York, but which keeps a certain East Bay DIY spirit deep inside. Johansson’s sensibilities range from delicate works on paper to kinetic, mechanical and electronic art, all of which is on display this month…” – Anu Vikram | SFMOMA Open Space | May 2009

“Wander [into] the gallery at Johansson Projects in Oakland to view stunning artwork from international and local artists.” Airport Rentals | Admin | 2018 Link

VOTED BEST GALLERY EAST BAY EXPRESS

“Johansson Projects consistently presented thoughtful, eclectic shows with a high degree of professionalism and polish, and, equally notable, a refreshing enthusiasm and absence of art attitude, in keeping with Oakland’s brash, collegial Art Murmur spirit…Art shown in this stylish space (with its permanently installed “Moss Ceiling,” by Misa Inaoka) is postmodern-cool, often involving unusual methods or processes, but well crafted and visually appealing — not virtues one takes for granted these days, alas…

“…Located uptown at the heart of the Art Murmur festivities at 23rd Street and Telegraph Avenue is Johansson Projects, known for its small arcaded gallery surmounted by artist Misako Inaoka’s mock-verdant ceiling and its wittily entitled shows (e.g., Tickling Thicket, Collapsitalism, Flaming Furbelows) of elegantly subversive objects. Representing among others, mixed-media painters/collagists Val Britton, Amanda Hughen, Tadashi Moriyama and Katy Stone, and sculptors Kristina Lewis and Michael Meyers, Kimberly Johansson has created in only two and a half years, by general critical consensus, one of the best and most consistent young cutting-edge galleries in the Bay Area…” Link – DeWitt Cheng | Art ltd magazine | July 2009

“…A lively crowd has converged on the corner of Telegraph Avenue and 23rd Street for Art Murmur, Oakland’s monthly “First Friday,” when galleries such as Johansson Projects and Rock Paper Scissors debut new exhibits. Within a block of this nexus, amid squat auto-repair shops and brick warehouses, half a dozen art galleries appear to be thriving, and still more are scattered on the surrounding streets. The energy of the event is likely to catch a first-timer by surprise. It is an after-dark street party with an artistic bent. In the street, scruffy creative types mingle with sharp -dressed office workers, while an avant-garde musical trio adds a sonic layer to the atmosphere…Meanwhile, inside the galleries, some serious art appreciation – and buying – is going on. If you’re in the Bay Area on the first Friday of any month, this is clearly the place to be…now is the most exciting stage in the process, while the city is in flux, open to new people, new ideas, new energy. Increasingly, visitors to the Bay Area are catching on that “there is a there” in Oaktown…” – Tom Downs | April 2008 | Salt Lake City Tribune

“…Oakland is as much a part of this experimental space phenomenon as San Francisco. Artmurmur is a consortium of spaces of this ilk in Oakland, and now the First Friday of every month is known to belong to the Artmurmur gallery crawl: Blankspace, Mamma Buzz Cafe, Ego Park, and Johansson Projects, to name a few organizations that are currently a part of Artmurmur…to bring artists together physically to participate in experimental work, interventions, ephemeral performances, and site-specific installations…” – Aimee Le Duc | Spring/Summer 2008 “The Liminal Art Space.” | Camerawork

“…Johansson Projects presented group shows that were an interesting blend of the established and emerging, always with a smart theme. For the last few months, Johansson has been pairing up her artists into two-person shows. The work presented is intellectually aware, well made and mature…” – Timothy Buckwalter | November 2007 | The Monthly

“Kimberly Johansson first got my attention with her show “The Art of Survival” at ABCo Artspace in West Oakland, where she impressed by bringing Jim Campbell and Victor Cartagena into Oakland’s alternative gallery scene. She’s just closed another ambitious, intergenerational show…” – Anuradha Vikram | 2007 | “Excavations”

“…Johansson Projects is a new gallery that brings a skillful, spare touch to the corner of Telegraph and 23rd, the hub of a burgeoning Oakland scene that is challenging and reshaping Bay Area arts…” – Anuradha Vikram | 2007 | “Thread” | Artillery Magazine

Comments from the Yelp Community

“Hi people. This is the best art gallery in the bay area. Yes that includes San Francisco. Kimberly Johansson has an incredible eye for art that is aesthetically, conceptually and creatively strong and innovative. Every single show I have seen here has been fantastic. The only other gallery that comes close is Postmasters in New York City… Yay…”

“Hands down, my favorite art gallery in the East Bay. I think I’ve seen every show in the last two years, and am consistently impressed — and often blown away — by them. Kimberley Johansson is an incredible curator, and I’ve been turned on to many of my now-favorite artists at Johansson Projects. I’m always excited to see what’s next here.”

“Always my 1st stop on the Oakland murmur crawl. I love the permanent fake grass ceiling, the video installation spaces in the backs of both rooms, and the interesting shows that come through there. This latest one, Propagations, is super anti-establishment end of the world Matrix shit. Really dug it. A lot of female artists, too, which is always great to see and experience.”

“Johansson Projects is easily one of the top galleries in the East Bay. I believe thanks to Kimberly’s curatorial talents the exhibitions are always interesting and the shows are filled with extremely varied but thematically consistent work. There seems to be an emphasis on using materials in unconventional ways in much of the work shown.”

“Best collection of artists I’ve seen in a very long time. Nice to get a little bit of distance from the cartoon/drippy aesthetic that has defined “hipster” art for years now. Don’t get me wrong, love the cartoony thing…but the last show I saw here was a definite step beyond.”

“I kept catching myself just stopping and staring when something caught my eye, not caring that there were lots of people around, blocking out the chit chat and the clicking of our shoes on the bare wood floors. Gracias Kimberly Johansson for adding to my Universe and I’m looking forward to your future Projects!”

“In Her Kind” Anna Fidler + Cathy Lu…seem to declare a new world order where feminists call the shots…” SF Arts Monthly | “Gallery Highlights” | March 2019 | Christian L Frock | Link

“…How does living in such a heavily fabricated and dictated environment change our biology?” This existential take on art opens doors for a metaphysical experience through tangible things…” Eastbay Express | First Friday Guide, August Edition: Staff Pick | Amyra Soriano Link

“Michelle Blade carries around in her head a color-filled world where spirits assemble, then dematerialize, amid fantastic settings. She shares a view into that world in an exhibition called “Partnerlook” at Johansson Projects… Blade’s best-known work is done in acrylic paint… a technique that, in her hand, crackles with barely contained energy. Small in format but grand in their imaginative scope, the works can be as awe-inspiring and mysterious as scenes from the best Hollywood science fiction.” San Francisco Chronicle: SF Gate | Charles Desmarais | November 29, 2017 Link

“…Consistent in its effort to test assumptions and complacency is the gallery Johansson Projects (…). Known for its work to bring regional artists to a national platform, the gallery is showing the work of Claire Colette, who earned a master’s degree from Mills College in 2013, through Oct. 28. An artist with a recent MFA from one of the top graduate programs in the Bay Area might be expected to mount a trendy show, or an academic one, or both. Not this time. “Monument Eternal,” as the exhibition is titled, reaches across time and theory to a place more authentic…” San Francisco Chronicle | Charles Desmarais | September 2017 Link

“Colette’s paintings depict the sacred architecture and the creation myths of various cultures, along with the astronomical phenomena studied throughout human history, but they’re filtered through a minimalist, modernist sensibility.” The Monthly | DeWitt Cheng | September 2017 Link

“…Ottinger’s curious figures find their formal counterparts in Reeds’ colorful floor-based sculptures, no doubt, but don’t be fooled by so much bubblegum pink—there are enough politics to pack a punch.” Link Curator Christian L. Frock for SF/Arts on Jennie Ottinger and Megan Reed

”…Reed’s multicolored, highly-textured, abstract sculptures and Ottinger’s paintings that depict disconcerting, emotional crowds of overly competitive cheerleaders take a deep look at the alluring, thin veneer of popular culture and into the more convoluted, and at times deeply disturbing, world behind this deceptively attractive surface. Megan Reed’s dynamic use of color as well as the obvious hand-crafted quality in her sculptures, with tactile surfaces and organic compositions, are she says an “ongoing response to the mass produced, the surface-slickness of both consumer packaging and, even more, the digital mirage through which most of us interact (and view art).” Her sculptures provoke both the reading of itself as well as the viewer’s preconceived visual vocabulary to read it. In a like manner, Ottinger’s mass of faces emerging from white gallery walls and in the paintings themselves, where crowds of people look on from the bleachers, reverse the typical direction of gaze and poke at the limits of the work, making subject of the viewer. It seems what is on view in the galleries is as much the ways of looking as what is depicted. …” Link Admin for Oakland Art Enthusiast on Jennie Ottinger and Megan Reed

“…Reed’s goofy, anthropomorphic sculptures, the colors of fruit soda, cotton candy and Likamade, look like characters that played hooky from a children’s cartoon to watch the parade go by. Humorous, kind of sweet, mounted on spindly legs or going in several directions at once, they’re ungainly in an adorable way. Works such as “Whitewashed,” an extra-large-sized, bubble-gum-colored hand anchored in a pile of orange slabs, and either waving or giving someone the finger, and “P,” a queasy, flesh-toned thing with a long tongue sticking out from a hole in its center, among others, make a game audience for the sports spectacles conceived in the scintillating imagination of Jennie Ottinger. The San Francisco artist, whose paintings probe the underside of power, hierarchy and affiliation with wicked humor, continues her preoccupation with peppy, smiley-faced cheerleaders who are (mostly) the soft pink of rare beef. But don’t be fooled: beneath the clean-cut, All-American veneer, the rah-rah stadium rallies she depicts have a giddy, unwholesome fervor Leni Riefenstahl could love…” Link Sura Wood for Bay Area Reporter on Jennie Ottinger and Megan Reed

“…Both examine the cultural moment’s unsettling instabilities…Kleberg’s large oil + paintstick canvases have the bright palette of 1960s hard-edge abstraction, but none of its dogmatic insistence on flatness, materiality + literal interpretation. Indeed, they play with the old metaphor of painted space as a virtual world…De Othello’s humanized, weirdly comical objects come from the Bay Area Funk tradition…” Link Dewitt Cheng for Visual Art Source on Woody De Othello and Matt Kleberg

“…De Othello’s darkly humorous presences, and Kleberg’s brooding portals, complement each other nicely in this disturbing but delightful interlude in the otherworld…” Link Barbara Morris for Artillery Mag on Woody De Othello and Matt Kleberg

“..Othello creates cartoonish ceramic sculptures of mundane objects, but with a twist. The artist instills in his sculptural forms a human quality, such as in I Can See You But I Don’t Hear You (2016), a large ceramic telephone whose sunken form and wilted receiver make the object look weary and fragile…” Link Artsy Editorial on Woody De Othello

…his paintings are the kind of pieces you want to be able to take in from a good vantage point. Filled with colorful stripes and rigid geometries, they channel architectural spaces like archways and theater stages… they ‘pay homage to Frank Stella but take visionary liberties’…” Link Laura Itzkowitz for Brooklyn Mag on Matt Kleberg

“…Matt Kleberg, who complicates the parallel stripes of modernism with light and shadow, wilder colors and warped spaces that conjure abstract prosceniums and archways. The endearing results pay homage to Frank Stella but take visionary liberties…” Link Roberta Smith for New York Times on Matt Kleberg

“ …Kleberg, a recent graduate of Pratt Institute, makes work that feels like a contemporary version of the New York School, with a rough edge that ensures its presence in a current context….At the same time, though, we must acknowledge their urban buoyancy, forming a nearly kaleidoscopic vision that addresses both the surface of the canvas and the illusory perspective of inner space…” Link Jonathan Goodman for Brooklyn Rail on Matt Kleberg

“…Right now there is a wonderful installation at Johansson Projects in Oakland…Ramos is a very young artist who uses color, shape, found materials, and then stages all of these elements…” Link Susan Roth Design on Sofie Ramos

“…The immersive installation at Johansson Projects Gallery is joyous and playful. Painting directly onto the walls and floors to cohesively supplement her simple geometric sculptures, Ramos creates the feeling of walking into a painting. It’s never clear where one piece ends and another begins, and the architecture of the gallery itself appears equally warped. In a political climate that feels perpetually gloomy, Pathways is an absolute delight…” Link Sarah Burke for EBX on Sofie Ramos

“…Her works exist in constant bold transition and cathartic intuitive movement…Living as we do in the ‘creative destruction’ of ‘late’ capitalism, we all understand this ethos only too well…” Dewitt Cheng for the Monthly on Sofie Ramos

“…During her January residency at Johansson Projects, Ramos worked on site to create fantastically charged, large-scale immersive installation compositions drawn from the materials of previous installations. Her signature use of bold colors and flat forms contributes to one’s sense of having been dropped into an ongoing narrative, at once familiar and strange….” Link Christian Frock for Sf Arts Monthly on Sofie Ramos

“…Not one to be confined by the boundaries of a canvas, Oakland artist Sofie Ramos’ bold, fantastical, don’t-fence-me-in installations transform the gallery into a magical playground with walls, ceilings and floors covered in layers of rainbow-colored house paint…” Link Sura Wood for Bay Area Reporter on Sofie Ramos

“…While the “closure” of traditional narrative and forms of meaning-making are rejected in Ramos’ work, her paintings are enormously expressive — they include not only a lot of information but a lot of play…” Link Brandon Brown for KQED Arts on Sofie Ramos

“…Her large Alice-in-Wonderlandish installations fight against being contained. In her most recent work, Ramos reorients the space her installations inhabit by interconnecting drywall constructions with paint and a visually satisfying array of textiles and string. When you let your eyes go fuzzy and allow the installation to flatten, it resembles a delicately balanced abstract painting…” Link Adriana Villagran for Venison Magazine on Sofie Ramos

“… My art is my life. It’s a necessary catharsis. It’s my connection and contribution to the world. It’s the solution that I cling to in the face of oppressive and crippling existential absurdity, which as an artist seems a persistent and merciless burden…” Link Daniella Wenger for The Daily Clog on Sofie Ramos

“…Kori’s vivid work does indeed look like it was born out of dreams; the geometric compositions are rich in color and cryptic, and evoke a sense of the mystical… as if they might represent lived realities that we have no words for…” Link In The Make on Alexander Kori Girard

“…his mesmerising vessels have surfaces that command as much attention as their structures, from riotous colourful melees to precise geometric patterns…” Link Olivia Martin for Wallpaper* on Cody Hoyt

“…Today, Cody Hoyt progresses this age-old practice by crafting conversely geometric and organic clay vessels. Drawing inspiration from the ancient Japanese technique of nerikomi and Cody’s previous work as a painter and printmaker, the angular vessels recall their ancient ancestors: They stand as sculptural pieces while also serving as functional objects. And with each work, Cody continues to hone his process, pushing the limits of conventional slab construction and persistently evolving his unconventional surface patterns…”Link Skye Parrot for Double Or Nothing on Cody Hoyt

“…Meticulous and moody, Blaise Rosenthal’s asymmetrical paintings are like slow moving boxcars, carrying the freight across a vast American landscape…The eclipsing vastness of Torrents, the largest piece in the show, spreads out before us, a yawning canyon in the night. But the abutment of the two canvases cleaves a line down the middle, causing us to recalibrate our relationship to the painting not as an image, but as an object… ” Link -Square Cylinder on Blaise Rosenthal April 2016

“…Charcoal lines, drawn in painstaking density, assert themselves on earthy canvases, forming monoliths at once imposing and grounding…Repeated chant-like, they lend the gallery the aura of a chapel (heightened by the unique arches in this space). I saw echoes of Serra…as well as Warhol’s piss paintings in the pigment splotches…I thrilled at the recall of Nasreen Mohamedi…” – Colin Fernandes on Blaise Rosenthal Link

“…With the vampire cresting in pop culture, the creepy congregation at Johansson Projects is not only emotionally transfixing, but delivers Fidler’s recurring statements about portrait representation and implied narrative, icon and spectacle, with clarity and verve…” – Alex Bigman on Anna Fidler for East Bay Express Link

“…Among the most compelling works in Luminous Flux 2.0 is Craig Dorety’s Offset Circles — Yellow Flowering Tree Against Blue Sky… The shifting colors and offset composition of the concentric circles is designed to mimic the effect of ocular hallucinations produced during migraine headaches. It’s a disorienting work with a hypnotizing effect that makes it difficult to pull your eyes away…” -Michael Abatemarco on Craig Dorety for Pasatiempo Link

“…In ‘Division,’ San Francisco-based artist Craig Dorety is examining visual limits and perception, bringing our own neurological shortcomings to our attention…” -Nara Shin on Craig Dorety for Cool Hunting Link

>“…It’s an exhibition that captivates viewers in a perceptual seduction supplanted by-way-of Dorety’s curious technique and process, which marries soft-edge geometric planes with emotive halos of light juxtaposed in voids of potentiality scaling to infinity…” -Max Eternity on Craig Dorety for Art Digital Link

“Ottinger’s work humorously examines the dark side of social grouping. Signifiers such as pins, uniforms, suits, and bonding activities like sitting in circles and holding hands seem to train youngsters for corporate futures featuring salesmanship, retreats, and trust falls.” – Kelly Inouye on Jennie Ottinger for SFAQ Link

“…these subjects don’t look at you — only in your general direction. This is what renders the paintings so ghostly — not a characteristic of the subjects, but of the displaced viewer. The vagueness of the subjects’ faces severs the possibility of a connective gaze, leaving the viewer with the spooky sensation of sharing perhaps a space but not a reality.” – Alex Bigman on Jennie Ottinger for East Bay Express Link

“…If Ottinger’s own childhood experiences do not lie behind these quietly creepy images, then a juvenile insecurity that burdens most of us – and evidently her – into adulthood does.The low definition of Ottinger’s images, juiced with color but vague as to details, may be truer to the nature of our visual memories than anything that passes for realism…” – Kenneth Baker on Jennie Ottinger for SF Chronicle Link

“In her upcoming exhibition “What To Do With Your Orphan: A Manual,” Ottinger helps plotting godparents figure out the most effective ways to manipulate and exploit their wards while feigning parental love when others are looking. There is something a bit off about Ottinger’s orphans…” – Priscilla Frank on Jennie Ottinger for Huffington Post Link

“…Study Jennie Ottinger’s paintings closely enough and the melancholy bubbles right to the surface. Gray, tan, beige and school-uniform blue permeate quotidian scenes of people in places where they truly do not wish to be… It’s an aesthetic of disquietude, and it’s magnificent, tender, honest without being brutally so. This is why Johansson Projects consistently scores as our favorite gallery in Oakland…” – Peter Kane on Jennie Ottinger for MSN Postbox

“…Jennie Ottinger has a knack for editing a situation down to its most poignant essentials. In her bountiful solo exhibition Due By at Johansson Projects in Oakland, she continues to apply this talent to painting, both in gouache and oil and also extends into literature and book art. She’s successful throughout… Ottinger delivers a seriously fun  cultural romp with just the right dose of neurosis-inducing discomfort. This is a show that lingers long after you’ve departed from the ghostly images and time-honored texts.” Link – Cherie Louise Turner for the Huffington Post

“…Her sparse painting style with its isolated blocks of color and unfinished details is a natural fit for the moments she chooses to illustrate: funerals, court hearings, soldiers at war. I like that she doesn’t necessarily paint the most famous parts of the books either, and instead the images acquire a sort of universality only heightened if like me you’ve read only a smattering of the Great Novels. In addition to her paintings Ottinger has also repurposed a series of hardbacks, wrapping them in painted jackets and excavating the pages so to insert her own blunt, laugh-out-loud synopses of the stories…” Link – Heidi DeVries for Engineer’s Daughter Blog

“…Jennie’s paintings grab you and don’t let go. There is something so honest and human about her work – the crude and sometimes uglier side of people, peppered with a heavy dose of wit. She is one of my favorite contemporary artists…” – Kate Singleton for Jennie Ottinger for Art Hound

“…Ottinger’s retellings — handwritten in a tiny, tidy scrawl that resembles birdtracks across fresh snow — are by far the best thing in “Due By.” Her observations are pithy, and at times, flash an understated brilliance. Ottinger is also, on occasion, not above proclaiming her ignorance of the text she’s writing on and doesn’t hesitate to quote Wikipedia and SparkNotes for backup…” Link – Matt Sussman on Jennie Ottinger for SF Bay Guardian

“Jennie Ottinger was definitely the standout at Nada and the red dots by nearly every one of her painting confirmed we were not alone in feeling this way. We love the gesture of her brush, the soft color palette and their unfinished nature.” Link – Kiss and Tell on Jennie Ottinger

“Ottinger is light on fuss and has a gift for economic gestures: she knows how to work a smudge into something horrifically mouthlike… there is almost a comic existential horror to this image (Public Pool) -it evokes the moment when Wile E. Coyote stops running in midair and looks down…Her paintings seem to caution that in life as in death, we risk becoming metonymically condensed into the personal effects-the pictures and documents-that offer only limited proof of our existence.” Link – Matt Sussman on Jennie Ottinger for Art in America Review Nov 2009
“She has a voluminous, involving show at Johansson Projects in Oakland..put a few of Ottinger’s pieces together, put “Man Chat” (2009) next to almost any of them, say, and specious narratives begin stirring in the mind..The peculiar key of Ottinger’s art – intent yet relaxed, a sort of soft-focus tunnel vision – lets it evoke the inner zone where memories of real life, of mediated images, of dreams and of images elicited by stories mingle and get confused…”  Link – Heidi J. De Vries on Jennie Ottinger for Engineer’s Daughter

“…Ottinger’s work is dictated by a beautiful fragility which suggests a sense of impermanence and melancholy…”   Link – Seth Curcio on Jennie Ottinger for Daily Serving

“…Superman costume…When cannily placed near a government-issue personal identification sheet (hand drawn with verisimilitude) and a painting of a school teacher in situ—the modern-day Clark Kent—the associations brim with hilarity. I stumbled around the gallery aimlessly after a while, rereading and revising each story…”  Link – Andy Ritchie on Jennie Ottinger for Artslant

“Harnessing the wonders of technology, Corfield’s world seemingly takes place in the time of the penny arcade. Set up in series, the subjects of her drawings are actors in her world, experiencing real and imagined technological frustrations in their frames… Corfield’s Ether is no celestial paradise, rather it is an unending continuum of technological experiences, revealing the ways we may find ourselves unknowingly caught in its trajectory” Link – Kara Q. Smith on Christina Corfield for ArtSlant

“The show’s language feels a bit distant, like we’re entering a historical archive that’s been tweaked to blur history with fiction. The work manages to remind us that we’re looking at unreal events but also that’s we’re seeing ourselves here. …Corfield’s show, it’s popular entertainment done right, is somehow both timeless and of it’s time.” – Marion Anthonisen on Christina Corfield for KQED Arts

“Hunter Longe and Matthew Draving’s floor-bound sculpture Open Screen Unit grounds many of the ideas afoot in this concise group show… The title indicates that this “screen” is not a surface for the serial, filmic play of images, but a site that responds to the simultaneous, software-enabled production of images. Indeed, throughout the exhibition screens are employed not as spaces of fixity or one-way transmission, but as sites open to fluidity and mutation by their environment and the user…” – Ceci Moss on New Document for Artforum Critic’s Pick

“…Soren’s photographs capture fleeting moments of impressive natural force, producing images of beauty, but Bischoff and Black step beyond wonderment to create works that are documents of their own creative processes…” – Sarah Hotchkiss on Bischoff Soren Black for KQED Arts

“…[Brice Bishoff’s] colorful shapes — which vary in form from blasts of light to smoky wisps — evoke both the caves’ history as a site for staged close encounters of the third kind, as well as nineteenth century spirit photography. They’re also simply beautiful to look at…” – Matt Sussman on Bischoff Soren Black for SF Bay Guardian

“…The experience of viewing the exhibition is one of quiet turmoil in contrast with the inherent beauty of the natural world. Like watching a video of a forest fire with the sound off, you know that something destructive is happening, but you know it will lead to regeneration. And of course there’s no denying how beautifully mesmerizing it is.” – Amelia Sechman on Bischoff Soren Black for Daily Serving

“…Together, the artists present surreal, beautiful, and dream-like images that tell a story of both light and darkness…” – Bonnie Chan on Bischoff Soren Black for Flavorpill

“For the last 39 years, The Residents have been producing underground art, music, and videos that have puzzled many, and created a rabid fan base. The identities of the band members have been a closely guarded secret since 1972, when a few hundred copies of their first record were sent to everyone from the President to local radio stations.” Link – NBC Interview by Josh Keppel of Homer Flynn

“…Artist Dan Grayber has a new show on display in Oakland, at Johansson Projects. It features an ingenious collection of spring-loaded devices that play on ideas of architecture, tension, mechanics, and space. They are more like booby traps—their only spatial purpose to support themselves in states of high tension—or re-tuned Vitruvian readymades sealed in glass. ” Link – BLDG BLOG on Dan Grayber

“…Dan Grayber’s sculptures are machines that only have one function: holding themselves up. But they seem to do it well, and they definitely do it beautifully.” Link – Gizmodo Blog on Dan Grayber

“…Grayber’s combinations of glass vitrines that house a series of well organized springs, steel and mechanics are just plain delightful mashups… In addition to dancing between different mediums, Grayber’s sculptures not only solve a problem but also simultaneously create one” -Juxtapoz Magazine on Dan Grayber

“Johansson Projects in Oakland presents a two-man show that restores to architecture something of its bygone modernist function as an idiom of utopian and dystopian dreaming…” – Kenneth Baker on Outpost for San Francisco Chronicle October 2008

“…While Britton explores the poetics of landscape, Meyers satirizes technological culture with his impeccably fabricated impossible machines and models…The McCoys question technologically mediated knowledge. The VCR in “Video Inversion,” programmed to load a never-delivered videocassette, is an abject protagonist and an object lesson worthy of Ionesco or Beckett…” Link – DeWitt Cheng on Jennifer and Kevin McCoy June 2008

“…Portals offers a memorable journey from our everyday world into a whirling, florescent atmosphere where thought and motion coalesce into engaging, enigmatic objects for our contemplation…the trio seemed remarkably well-suited…Johansson Projects…has assembled another winning and dynamic exhibition…” – Barbara Morris on “Portals” for Artweek July 2008

“…natural motifs and materials to suggest a dynamic cosmos in which hierarchical categories dissolve, freeing their constituent elements to recombine in mysterious mutations. The artworks’ occasional sexual implications are suggested by the show’s sly title, Flaming Furbelows…” Link  – DeWitt Cheng on Flaming Furbelows June 2008

“…pushed far enough, disciplined method can yield a kind of refined madness…”- DeWitt Cheng October 2007 on Michael Meyers & Amanda Hughen in “Transtructural” cover story for Artweek

“…Naughty patches of fur and yarn that emit eerie squeals from their downy orifices, and bloodthirsty insects engaged in combat across surreal landscapes. If those descriptions don’t intrigue you, you’re not freaky enough to live in or near San Francisco. Marina Vendrell’s deranged creatures — a hybridization of castoff mink fur coats and stuffed animals — are endearing and depraved. A duo made up of a Kate and an Eric, Kate Eric’s works enact children’s book-like scenes, but with a violent, postapocalyptic twist. In the new show “Flaming Furbelows,” these Bay Area artists join forces to explore the fine lines separating attraction and repulsion, tenderness and terror — and to prove that perverse art is the juiciest kind…” – L.C. Mason on Flaming Furbelows for San Francisco Bay Guardian

“…From the lush introduction of Inaoka’s aviary through Scott Oliver’s and Britton’s dreamt narratives, to the final fragmenting of Desoto’s audio nonsense, Excavations is visually explosive. The Show hangs in shrapneled beauty…” – Chaz Reetz-Laiolo for Shotgun Review June 2007

“…the Propagations show at Johansson Projects considers the dangers and mysteries of modern life without sensationalism, deploying instead beauty, humor, and even creativity…Paul Hayes’ exhilarating installation of wire-suspended folded paper charges the gallery space with visual power…”  Link – De Witt Cheng April 2008 on Propagations for East bay Express

“Paul Hayes’ gorgeous folded-paper-and-wire sculpture Cultivated Momentum hangs from Johansson Projects’ ceiling like the canopy of an origami kelp forest…Hayes’ and Moriyama’s pieces almost emit an undertow, and after several minutes of gazing at their proliferating forms you have become embedded.”  Link – Matt Sussman April 2008 on Propagations for San Francisco Bay Guardian

“…Tokyo-born Moriyama inks overcrowded, intricately lined urban landscapes that he calls the “ancient future.” Wires spill from windows, feeding a tangled knot in the middle of a warped city. Urban enclaves resemble dividing cells. Buildings sprout organs that seem like they are consuming one another. Moriyama’s work is as much a post-apocalyptic vision – where our material and digital structures are the only organisms to survive – as it is a reflection on the hyper-connectedness and loneliness that coexist in the era of global communications…” – Vanessa Carr March 2008 on Propagations for San Francisco Bay Guardian

“Tickling Thicket, a provocative exhibit by Katy Stone and Yvette Molina, two painters with very different ideas about representing nature…Stone’s Untitled (Thicket Heap): a floor-to-ceiling construction in a tiny room that delivers what feels like an ocean-floor view of a kelp bed: a head-spinning tangle of limbs, vines, roots, stalks and tendrils interspersed with flora of indeterminate species. The range of associative possibilities seems almost endless. In contrast, Molina’s oil-on-aluminum paintings are cool, Asian-influenced landscapes whose loose lines and Symbolist lighting effects bypass the obvious clichés of the genre while simultaneously appearing to engage them…”  Link – David Roth for Art Ltd Magazine

“Johansson Projects’ large-scale multimedia show, Propagations…continues its strong run of well-curated shows as it nears its one year anniversary next month…” – Theo Konrad Auer April 2008 for Novo Metro April Art Picks

” …an impressive and memorable exhibit. An often-unsung genre, fiber art is one that can feel most mysterious, yet closest to home…” Link – Kristin Farr KQED Arts & Culture July 2007 on “Thread”

“…Through this seemingly simple concept emerge complex, rich, and highly divergent works. Devorah Sperber, using math and magic, transforms a panel of thread spools into a refracted homage to Grant Wood’s “American Gothic…”- Jakki Spicer Aug 2007 East Bay Express on “Thread”