Kristina Johnson
b. 1991she/her
Kristina Johnson (KJ) is an artist and curator from Minnesota. She graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (‘17) with an emphasis in Drawing and Painting. In 2019, KJ became director of arts platform, Waiting Room. Since then she has organized exhibitions exploring critical questions about the relationship of art to abstraction, the environment, social concerns, political issues and theories of identity, individuation, and subjectivation. In 2020, KJ’s curatorial work was featured in Artforum’s Critics’ Picks; as well as personally featured in local Twin Cities publications such as City Pages, MNDaily, and Star Tribune.
Today, KJ operates Waiting Room out of the basement of her home in Minneapolis. She divides her time between sustaining her own art practice and her love of working directly with emerging artists and curators to realize their visions.
Artist Statement
My work began as a mechanism to cope with my mother’s chronic progressive disease, Multiple Sclerosis. I obsessively created with her image embedded as the subject; questioning how one could portray “the human condition.” Hours spent documenting her gestures shaped my practice into an ongoing narrative, alluding to an inextricably dark yet humorous past. Each piece functions as a glimpse into my stream of consciousness. A tangential view of an inner life bound by the meaning of self, language, and relationships.