Statement
Working in a humanist painterly tradition with a focus on figures, I am drawn to the canvas by grief and longing, both in a personal sense of my own life trajectory, and in the fraught trajectories of contemporary U.S. society in its disastrous turn toward unchecked racialized and gendered capitalism, hyper-rationalization, and neo-fascism. In this context, my art practice speaks to my interests in countervailing individual expressions of self-possession, belonging and devotion, as well as power and resistance. In defense of the human dignity, I am compelled to paint people I care about deeply, living or dead, in my daily life or not. I paint to relate to them and with them, to bring them- and qualities of our shared humanity- back to life and back to me. I paint to bring people near, to celebrate them, to wish them joy, to ward off my fears for them, to remember them, and to remember us. In this way, both the act of painting, and the themes I engage, create a space for me to connect, resist, and heal.
Artist Bio:
Johanna Foster is a Montclair-based figurative painter currently pursuing her MFA in Painting and Drawing at New Jersey City University. Prior to pursuing her MFA, Johanna studied portraiture for nearly a decade at the Yard School of Art in Montclair. When she is not painting, Johanna is also Professor of Sociology and the Helen Bennett McMurray Endowed Chair of Social Ethics at Monmouth University, specializing in the study of social inequalities and social change through a feminist political economy lens. Rendering her subjects in oil in a contemporary painterly style, her practice speaks to her interests in the interrelated themes of identity, dignity, devotion, power and resistance, and a commitment to defend against personal and political erasure. Johanna’s work has been exhibited at the Euphrat Museum of Art at DeAnza College in Cupertino, California, alongside the work of Hung Liu and Favianna Rodgriguez, at Monmouth University, the Studio Montclair Leach Gallery in Montclair, and the Gaelen Art Gallery in West Orange. In 2024, her painting, Pride of Place, was among the twenty artworks selected from over 1000 entries for a year-long digital exhibition in Newark Liberty International Airport. Johanna’s work has also been included in the 2024 New Jersey Arts Annual Show, “Exploring Our Connections” at the Montclair Art Museum.
johanna.e.foster@gmail.com