This collection of work provokes the emergence of subconscious clutter purged and formed into something entirely new. This darkly utopian place mixes personal myth and memories resembling a fertile inner realm. A disorienting environment noting absurd and erotic, which are in confectionery and natural color tones. The sculptures are a realization of my painted images, albeit separate yet symbiotic.

ABOUT Information Systems, a component o a large installation project We Are Here Now. 

This work is a compilation of the anxiety and fear of returning to the past.  I am a woman, an artist, a mother, a survivor. My work derives the past and present moments, fortified to strengthen a FUTURE of choice, a vehicle forward.

The expectations in the work environment and social structures often conflict with the expectations of motherhood and family. Under the scrutiny of social media in a time where our lives are documented by technology, we are judged in all we do, by each other. Images and video can be manipulated to gaslight and control, in a more sinister side of this new world.

The sculptural work is compiled from objects collected over a lifetime, items saved from childhood though the present day. These are collections of natural objects, discarded items, translucent fabrics, and items representing memories. These works are compiled with pieces of outdated information, academic text, obsolete technology and constrictive nylon women’s work-wear. Personal items such as a childhood diary and unsent letters written to long forgotten recipients are included.  Most of the work is held together with waxed sinew string, sewing straight pins, upholstery pins, and weeping beech tree boughs and switches, representing endurance, strength and resilience. The nature of this work is very personal, but speaks as a representation of all women. We (women) are a historically repressed group within our cultural settings.  Survival often means taking traumatic, oppressive experiences and internalizing the experience to create something new and positive.  This is a process of taking control of the past to create something entirely new.  The work has reference to the natural regenerative process of metamorphosis in the natural environment. It is important to note that the paintings and the sculptures are informing one another as they are being made simultaneously in a cycled work pattern.

Information Systems installation is a “ living” sculpture, to which the collection of work is constantly being created and added. Each work is individual and may be presented as a single work or within a group of sculptures referred to as Information Systems.  The work layout is designed to be flexible and site specific for each unique architectural space.  

*Information Systems Portfolio was  photographed by Greg Leshé Studio in 2021 at April Zanne Johnson's NJ, USA Studio 

©2020 April Johnson/ Artist Right’s Society NYC