ART
Posted on July 16, 2013
From time to time we catch a glimpse of who we think we “really” are, the exhilaration and excitement of recognizing something that seems ourselves and yet larger than ourselves at the same time. It is this “something” that fuels my passion both in the process of art and in its subject matter. Art—in process and product—can be revelatory. That revelation may be uncomfortable, or even disturbing, but it always has the power to transform.
I’m primarily a digital artist. I take a photograph in the moment—capture the feel of a place or the look of a person—and I build something new from there by adding in layers of other photographs I’ve also taken. I work intuitively, and the final result is almost always a surprise compared to where I thought I wanted to go in the beginning of a project! But that is part of the fun. And the revelation.
My work has appeared in shows in the US and Canada, the journals The New Post-Literate, EmDash, Eyedrum Periodically, and the upcoming anthology Luminous by Synclectic Press. I’ve also been a cover artist for Sopher Press and I’m featured with the Guerrilla Artists Group.
Digital Art (including Vispo):
Eternal Childhood iPhoneography Series:
The glimpse we get of the self that is larger than the self, the self that can be discovered through the eyes of our inner child when we give her or him space to play….
Exhibitions
2015
Element, Brick Row Gallery, Cornelius, NC
2014
The Power of Labeling, The Incluseum, online exhibition
Zalop: Illusory Correspondence Art, Eyedrum, Atlanta
‘Convergence’, Brick Row Gallery, Cornelius, NC
Big Art Comes in Small Packages, Peter Street Fine Arts Gallery, Orillia, Ontario
2013
Small Works Invitational, Brick Row Gallery, Cornelius, NC
2010
Plastic Exhibition, Eyedrum, Atlanta
Slick Willy: BP’s Oil Slick, Archetype Art Gallery, Atlanta
Madison Area Open Art Studios Visual Poetry Exhibition, Madison, Wisconsin
VISPO, Eyedrum, Atlanta
Bibliography/Media
2015
Exhibit shows art ‘elements’, interview, The Herald Weekly
Erotic Faith: Desire, Suffering, & Transformation in the Incarnational Theology of Wendy Farley, Mari Kim, Ed., Upland: Sopher, 2015, book cover forthcoming
2014
The Artists of ‘Convergence’ Opening Friday at Brick Row, interview, DavidsonNews.net
2013
Lovely Tents of Jacob: the Vagina in Scripture, Erica L. Martin, Upland: Sopher, 2013, book cover
2010
Artist Spotlight: Melissa D. Johnston, May 9, 2010, The Art Gardner
Ten Minutes with Visual Poet Melissa Johnston, interview, Ennyman’s Territory
Collections
Works held in private collections in the United States and Canada.
WRITING
Posted on July 16, 2013
Melissa D. Johnston’s writing has been published in various journals, including Word and World, where she won the 2005 Doctoral Essay Prize with “Making Space: Silence, Voice, and Suffering.” Recently her poetry manuscript Encountering Crows finished as a semifinalist for the Joanna Cargill Coconut Book Prize for a First Book given by Coconut Press.
Her current book project explores bipolar experience, both her own and that given in others’ memoirs. She chronicles the intersection of societal norms of punishment (and reward) with the experience of those living with this mental illness, offering critique and a fresh perspective of society’s understanding of violence, relationship, and love.
