Luke Johnson is a Minnesota-born artist, researcher, and volunteer librarian based in Treaty 6 territory (Edmonton, Alberta). Working in print, photography, and durational engagements within collections, Johnson creates work that complicates notions of standardization and categorization within systems of knowledge. He received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his MFA from the University of Alberta, where he is currently a lecturer in printmaking and drawing.


In my artwork, I am concerned with hierarchies of knowledge, and the ways in which ‘truth’ and value become delineated from the subjective and discardable. In response to investigations into archival holdings, I create prints, publications, and installations that complicate our relationship to hierarchical structures within collections, acknowledging instead the complex, unruly reality of our institutions of public knowledge. By drawing the viewer into a participatory relationship with the work, through interactive elements such as text to be read or elements to handle or take away, space is created to reflect on the potentials and limits of images, artifacts, words, and actions, and to individually locate meaning in the gaps between evidence and truth.

My work fluidly moves between traditional printmaking processes and the broader field of print media, including photography—both analogue and digital—and text. These media, in turn, often function as part of installations which reference, or integrate themselves within, museological and archival spaces. In their spare aesthetics, which feature expanses of ‘empty’ space on the paper, or surrounding the physical installations, there is at once an invocation of the museum’s white walls that claim protection over their artifacts, as well as a room to consider all of the likewise objects and stories which could fill such spaces, but which lie dormant in the archive or lost to the forces of time, neglect, and destruction.

Recent works have responded to the ubiquitous suggestion that all information that is realistically to be desired is already accessible online, and that any stories worth knowing have been properly preserved in bits and bytes. With this in mind, I turn to algorithms created by major web browsers and databases, such as Google and Wikimedia Commons, to search out records housed by particular archives I am working within. The resulting images, which are not the intended answers to my search queries, are re-presented as both object lesson in the incompleteness of our digital world, as well as a nascent attempt to acknowledge, but not accept, the system of random images and text which have become our poor online replacement for browsing the physical stacks. Now more than ever, when funding is being stripped from our institutions of public knowledge—when we naively trust that the world’s memory is safe online—it is important to take care of the stories that have not, and perhaps cannot, be digitized.


EDUCATION

2020     University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
             MFA - Printmaking
2016     University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
             BFA - Print Media and Painting

SOLO AND COLLABORATIVE EXHIBITIONS
2021    There Were Nothing But Pedigrees All Around Us, curated by Adam Whitford,
                  Southern Alberta Art Gallery Library, Lethbridge AB

2020    All Things Considered, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Edmonton AB

2016    Glass House, Raymond F. Dvorak Gallery, Madison WI

2015    Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), with Finn Curry, 7th Floor Gallery, Madison WI
2015    Garden of the Forking Paths, Madison Central Library, Madison WI

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022    Codes of Conduct, co-curated with Aaron David, University of Wisconsin-Madison WI
2022    Re•Vision, Overture Center for the Arts, Madison, WI; Jill Krutick Fine Art, Mamaroneck NY

2021    Third International Print Biennale Yerevan, Yerevan, Armenia
2021    At a Time: Tender and Tense, SNAP Gallery, Edmonton AB
2021    Tectonic Shifts, juried by Edie Overturf, Tippetts & Eccles Galleries, Logan UT
2021    Bituminous Partings, curated by Alex Thompson, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Edmonton AB
2021    Okanagan Print Triennial, Vernon Public Art Gallery, Vernon BC

2020    10th International Printmaking Biennial Douro, Douro, Portugal
2020    In Place, SNAP Gallery, Edmonton AB
2020    Habitus, juried by Sheila Goloborotko & Andrew Kozlowski, Lufrano Gallery, Jacksonville FL

2019    15th Graphica Creativa International Print Triennial, Jyväskylä Art Museum, Jyväskylä, Finland
2019    Prototypes for Possible Worlds, curated by Natalie Loveless & Sheena Wilson, FAB Gallery, Edmonton AB
2019    4th Global Print, Douro, Portugal
2019    Devil's Dictionary, Gallery 224, Port Washington WI
2019    Printed Matter, curated by Alicja Habisiak Matczak, Kobro Gallery, Strzemiński Academy, Łódź, Poland
2019    Dyscorpia, curated by Marilène Oliver, Enterprise Square Galleries, Edmonton AB
2019    Habitus, curated by Sheila Goloborotko and Andrew Kozlowski, University of Dallas, Irving TX

2018    Stand Out Prints, juried by Crawford Alexander Man III, Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis MN
2018    way out west, curated by Candice Corgan & Zack Petot, University of Wyoming, Laramie WY
2018    Eco Dirt Buffet Cabaret, curated by Natalie Loveless & Jessie Beier, Mile Zero Dance, Edmonton AB
2018    Felt, Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists (SNAP) Gallery, Edmonton AB
2018    Salt City Dozen, juried by Ericka Walker, Sarah A. Coyne Gallery, Syracuse NY
2018    Anthropocities, IPCC Cities and Climate Change Conference, Shaw Centre, Edmonton AB

2017    International Print Biennale Yerevan 2017, Yerevan, Armenia
2017    Hello I Love You I'm Sorry, SGCI Conference, Atlanta GA

2016    ​Big Ten[t], curated by Barry Carlsen, ArtHelix, Brooklyn NY; Chicago IL; SoE Gallery, Madison WI
2016    Twin Cities Print Exchange, Boneshaker Books, Minneapolis MN
2016    The Last Sound on this Worthless Earth, 7th Floor Gallery, Madison WI
2016    Criminal, Overture Center for the Arts, Madison WI; Hoffman Gallery, Portland OR
2016    Suede Boots on a Wooden Floor, Ash Street Project, Portland OR
 
2015    I Love You When You’re Unhinged, 7th Floor Gallery, Madison WI
2015    And, Gallery 1010, Knoxville TN; Gelsy Verna Gallery, Madison WI; Drewelowe Gallery, Iowa City IA
2015    Apathetically Yours, 7th Floor Gallery, Madison WI
2015    87th Annual Student Art Show, Gallery 1308, Madison WI
2015    Manifestations, 7th Floor Gallery, Madison WI
 
2014    Fresh Hot Press, Breathing Space Gallery, Mount Lawley, Australia
2014    Tiny Hands on a Rubber Suit, Commonwealth Gallery, Madison WI
2014    Earl Grey, Art Lofts, Madison WI
2014    ​Midwest Multiples, juried by Hesse McGraw, Nemeth Art Center, Park Rapids MN
2014    Beyond the Horizon, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia

CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2022              Codes of Conduct, with Aaron David, SGCI Conference 2022, Madison WI
2022              Obscure Objects of Desire: Jack Damer & Lyndal Osborne, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Edmonton AB
2018-2019     50 Years Rat Free, with Phoebe Todd-Parrish, FAB Gallery, Edmonton AB
2016              Criminal, with Ryan Cain, Overture Center for the Arts, Madison WI; Hoffman Gallery, Portland OR
2015              The Gang’s All Here: 70 Years of the Madison Mafia, Art Lofts Gallery, Madison WI

RESIDENCIES, PUBLIC TALKS & PRESENTATIONS
2021    SNAP Emerging Artist in Residence, Edmonton AB
2018    ARTiculations Lecture Series, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB
2017    Grand Marais Art Colony Artist in Residence, Grand Marais MN
2016    Guest Artist, Perpich Center for the Arts, Golden Valley MN

SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS
​2022    Nominee, Queen Sonja Print Award
2021    Alberta Foundation for the Arts Visual Arts & New Media Project Grant
2021    Craig Hall Purchase Award - Okanagan Print Triennial
2018    Alberta Foundation for the Arts Graduate Scholarship
2017    University of Alberta Thesis-based Master's Recruitment Scholarship
2016    Finalist, Rochester Art Center Emerging Artist Exhibition Series
2015    Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship - with Emily Arthur
2015    Lois G. Roberts Scholarship
2015    Purchase Award - 87th Annual Student Art Show
2013    Kenneth D. Brown and Robert G. Kaentje Scholarship
2012    Catherine V. and Virginia E. Tenuta Scholarship

SELECT PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
DeWitt Wallace Special Collections, Macalester College, Minneapolis MN
Kulturdialog Armenien, Yerevan Armenia
Lake Effect Editions Archive, Syracuse NY
Oregon College of Art and Craft, Portland OR
University of Dallas, Irving TX
University of North Florida, Jacksonville FL
Wisconsin Union Art Collection, Madison WI
​Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw GA

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
When to Stand and When to Run, essay, SNAPline volume 2021.2, Summer 2021
Okanagan Print Triennial 2021, exhibition catalogue, Briar Craig & Lubos Culen, 2021
The Body in the Library, essay, SNAPline volume 2019.3, Winter 2019
Dyscorpia: Future Intersections of the Body & Technology, exhibition catalogue, Marilène Oliver, 2019
Anthropocities, exhibition catalogue, 2018
1st International Print Biennale Yerevan 2017, exhibition catalogue, 2018
Big Ten[t], exhibition catalogue, Barry Carlsen, 2016
Transformations, promotional artwork and graphics for UW Opera, 2015-16
Illumination, Undergraduate Journal of the Humanities, artwork, Spring 2015
The National Scholar, cover and interior illustrations, Volume 1 (ed. Amy Dahlin), 2012
An Exchange with Sol LeWitt, exhibition catalogue, Regine Basha, Cabinet Books, 2012