CLAIRE JOHNSON
(b.1986, South Africa, lives and works in Cape Town)
Claire Johnson’s practice examines the shifting relationship between objects, memory, meaning, and time. Her work begins with fragments of discarded fabric — “oddment batches” pulled from the floors of tailors and dressmakers. The absent form of a ceremonial gown, or a coveted suit jacket — a neckline here, a shirt panel there — an echo of the intimacy of cloth on skin.
Johnson assembles these fabric remnants into provisional compositions. These are not reconstructions but arrangements laid side by side, bleeding into one another. Fabric is a means for Johnson to hold a narrative for a moment, while allowing it to remain unsettled.
Having previously worked across sculpture, fabric, and video, painting now sits at the centre of Johnson’s process — not as image-making or illustration, but as a way of thinking through uncertainty. As artist Amy Sillman suggests, artmaking is often a process of trying to figure something out while doing it. Uncertainty isn’t corrected through painting; it is the point of painting.
After a period of absence in art making, time now enters Johnson’s work in a new way — not as a subject, but as a condition. As life thickens into adulthood and parenthood, roles multiply, and time becomes layered, not linear.
This shift is evident in the work itself; boundaries now soften. The paintings are built up through patient layers, and where colours once competed, they surrender into one another. Positive and negative spaces become less distinct. The rhythm of the studio has changed too. Time in the studio becomes more dispersed; longer intervals pass between decisions. Paintings are lived with, passed daily, absorbed sideways, allowing time for percolation. The process of painting becomes less about analysis and more about commitment.
What painting once offered as exploration now performs another task. Painting becomes a means of briefly holding time — recording intention, memory, and duration before they move on.
Claire Johnson’s practice examines the shifting relationship between objects, memory, meaning, and time. Her work begins with fragments of discarded fabric — “oddment batches” pulled from the floors of tailors and dressmakers. The absent form of a ceremonial gown, or a coveted suit jacket — a neckline here, a shirt panel there — an echo of the intimacy of cloth on skin.
Johnson assembles these fabric remnants into provisional compositions. These are not reconstructions but arrangements laid side by side, bleeding into one another. Fabric is a means for Johnson to hold a narrative for a moment, while allowing it to remain unsettled.
Having previously worked across sculpture, fabric, and video, painting now sits at the centre of Johnson’s process — not as image-making or illustration, but as a way of thinking through uncertainty. As artist Amy Sillman suggests, artmaking is often a process of trying to figure something out while doing it. Uncertainty isn’t corrected through painting; it is the point of painting.
After a period of absence in art making, time now enters Johnson’s work in a new way — not as a subject, but as a condition. As life thickens into adulthood and parenthood, roles multiply, and time becomes layered, not linear.
This shift is evident in the work itself; boundaries now soften. The paintings are built up through patient layers, and where colours once competed, they surrender into one another. Positive and negative spaces become less distinct. The rhythm of the studio has changed too. Time in the studio becomes more dispersed; longer intervals pass between decisions. Paintings are lived with, passed daily, absorbed sideways, allowing time for percolation. The process of painting becomes less about analysis and more about commitment.
What painting once offered as exploration now performs another task. Painting becomes a means of briefly holding time — recording intention, memory, and duration before they move on.
Education
2010 Post-Graduate Diploma in Art, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town
2009 Bachelor of Arts (Creative Brand Communication)
specialising in graphic design, AAA School of Advertising, Cape Town.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2019 Remnant, SMITH, Cape Town
2016 Changing Hands, SMITH, Cape Town
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022 Painter! Painter! (Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2021 Between Strangers (Nuweland Gallery, NL)
2020 Peep Show Exhibition (Hoick, Online)
2019 Rendevous II (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2019 Emphatic Whispers (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2019 Re-Imagining Realities (Open24Hrs, Cape Town, ZA)
2018 Close Encounters (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Nano 1.1 (Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Out of Nowhere (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Salad (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2016 Sketch (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2015 On Second Thought (SMITH & Hoick, Cape Town, ZA)
2015 Two (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
Art Fairs
2026 Circular Ruins I (ICTAF, locus, Cape Town, ZA)
2023 Zsonamaco Sur Artfair (Nuweland Gallery, Mexico City, MX)
2021 AKAA Fair (Nuweland Gallery, Paris, FR)
2021 1-54 New York (Nuweland Gallery, NY)
2019 Art Joburg (SMITH, Johannesburg, ZA)
2018 ICTAF (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Shall We Move On? (SMITH, FNB Art Fair, Johannesburg, ZA)
2016 ICTAF (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2016 FNB JHB Art Fair (SMITH, Johannesburg, ZA)
2010 Post-Graduate Diploma in Art, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town
2009 Bachelor of Arts (Creative Brand Communication)
specialising in graphic design, AAA School of Advertising, Cape Town.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2019 Remnant, SMITH, Cape Town
2016 Changing Hands, SMITH, Cape Town
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022 Painter! Painter! (Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2021 Between Strangers (Nuweland Gallery, NL)
2020 Peep Show Exhibition (Hoick, Online)
2019 Rendevous II (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2019 Emphatic Whispers (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2019 Re-Imagining Realities (Open24Hrs, Cape Town, ZA)
2018 Close Encounters (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Nano 1.1 (Barnard Gallery, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Out of Nowhere (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Salad (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2016 Sketch (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2015 On Second Thought (SMITH & Hoick, Cape Town, ZA)
2015 Two (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
Art Fairs
2026 Circular Ruins I (ICTAF, locus, Cape Town, ZA)
2023 Zsonamaco Sur Artfair (Nuweland Gallery, Mexico City, MX)
2021 AKAA Fair (Nuweland Gallery, Paris, FR)
2021 1-54 New York (Nuweland Gallery, NY)
2019 Art Joburg (SMITH, Johannesburg, ZA)
2018 ICTAF (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2017 Shall We Move On? (SMITH, FNB Art Fair, Johannesburg, ZA)
2016 ICTAF (SMITH, Cape Town, ZA)
2016 FNB JHB Art Fair (SMITH, Johannesburg, ZA)