Meet Elisa Johns

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elisa Johns.

Hi Elisa, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve always painted and sketched whatever was around me – people, landscape, animals – really anything. Recently, when I moved studios, I found my first oil painting of Yosemite from when I was 14 years old. I also have loads of sketches from traveling throughout the years. I even have notes from a jury I served on in my 20’s that are portraits of the defendants, prosecutors, and witnesses.

My most recent work is based on photographs I’ve taken on backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Painting Mt. Whitney and other peaks in the Sierras has brought me a tremendous amount of comfort during the pandemic. Open spaces, nature and the sublime are what I need right now. The paintings also feel like my homage to California, a place I love. In addition to painting on canvas, I have begun painting landscapes on vellum to hang in my large studio windows as a form of drive-by art. My first window piece is a painting of Mt. Whitney as an ode to California during quarantine. I am also curating other artist’s work to show in the windows. I’m excited about this project, about sharing art with the community in a safe way during the pandemic.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
My biggest challenge as an artist is allowing myself the time and space to make the kind of work I want to be making. I am constantly trying to prioritize making work. But you also have to promote the work, and network, and find a way to make a living along the way. I’ve taught. I’ve waited tables. I’ve bartended. Plus, I’m a mother, and with schools currently closed, I am a teacher too, which is yet one more responsibility to balance. I think as artists we figure it out, and all of the challenges influence the work. My daughter, who is 7, has helped photograph some of the mountains and wildflowers I’m painting. She also comes to the studio for remote schooling and makes observations about my work that are so enlightening.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My work draws inspiration from the beauty and severity of the Western landscape. I love Kings Canyon in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where I retreat each summer to backpack. I see a certain connection between the immediacy of experiencing a painting and the immediacy of experiencing nature through the solitude and physicality of backpacking. When I paint, I try to interpret that experience and feeling. I work to navigate expanses of white canvas with washes of color and meandering passages of thick paint. The openness of the white ground suggests vastness and invites the viewer to fill in the blanks, a kind of collaborative visual thought. I deliberately pick out areas of the landscape to highlight, often focusing on immediate objects in the depth of field, while at other times I describe a larger panorama or atmosphere. I’m influenced by Japanese landscape paintings and the ways in which transcendent and sublime beauty found in the natural world can generate narrative scenes.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
My recent window project depicting Mt. Whitney is a love letter to the physicality and monumentality and beauty of California. I hope this depiction of an iconic landscape evokes a sense of possibility in such uncertain times.

Contact Info:

• Email: Johnselisa@gmail.com
• Website: www.elisajohns.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/elisajohns
• Twitter: @elisamariejohns