Wagnerian Perspectives

Johanna Wagner came to BoxoHOUSe from Karlsruhe, Germany in November, 2017. She had been recommended to me by Aaron Sheppard, a local multi-talented artist and performer, so I knew things would be interesting. Johanna works across several mediums, reacting to the stimulus in the environments she travels to. She also has some series of works which she sought to extend through the residency, particularly her "night shots."





















































 

Johanna delved right into the studio, making drawings and paintings on glass, panel and silk. She also got out into the landscape and starting making images and video. Johanna was happy to be invited to participate in JT Lab's Artist Tea series. For her presentation,she devised a meditative performance that focused on the elements around her - wind, sand and water. She also gave an artist talk about her work and then led the audience through some exercises that put them in the performance frame on the topic of binary code. 




































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n the lead up to her open house, Johanna collaborated with Aaron Sheppard on several short pieces for  performance. Aaron and Johanna have an ongoing collaboration titled Nameless and Neutral and they performed under this rubric. Johanna's wonderful documentation of the open house exhibition and video of the performance are on her site here.

Many thanks to Johanna for coming over to Joshua Tree and providing her unique perspective on the desert experience.