Ashley Johnson: The Divine Feminine
July 1–August 31, 2021

The Divine Feminine is an intimate solo exhibition of works from three connected series—Sestina, Us, and Woven—produced by Ashley Johnson, a writer and a multidisciplinary artist living in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Johnson uses mixed media via photography, textile, live floral, woven and braided masks to navigate intra-racial conflict, identity evolution, southern woman and girlhood, and studies of relative time as it relates to African American/feminine beauty practice.

Sestina is a narrative photographic series, born out of Johnson’s own experiences growing up. The crux of this work is tied to the practices of Black hair. Johnson’s somber images reflect the deep complexities of generational concepts of Southern femininity, Black-hair identity, and notions of self-worth that Johnson inherited through the countless hair rituals she shared with her mother. Lending to the brooding tone of these portraits is the artist’s childhood memory of picking at scabs where chemical hair straightener had seared her scalp.

Woven: Oya, 2016

Johnson assigned the names of gods and goddesses to each photograph in the WOVEN series, selecting the deity based on which she felt would best align with not only the energy of the image, but the attributes of the person who sat for the portrait. Here we see Oya—the great goddess of wind, fire and the thunderbolt; the defender of truth, justice, women and change.

WOVEN: Oya began as a formal study of texture and obscurity, created with the tools and natural resources that were available to the artist at the time. A dark-skinned figure sits shrouded in blackness. In high contrast is the sitter’s mask of white cotton fibers and wilting magnolias. In this sense, the mask serves as a tool for spiritual and ancestral remembrance, as well as connection to land and place as defined by its flora.

Us, 2016

video (1 minute loop)

As a counterbalance to the melancholy of the Sestina series, Us shares the joy, intimacy, and sisterhood that are also to be found in the rituals of Black hair. Us offers a forecast of hope for younger and future generations of Black girls and women, whose relationship to their own racial experiences will perhaps be less burdened thanks to Johnson’s raw and earnest confrontation of the subject matter.

Artist Bio
Johnson's work has been exhibited in venues including but not limited to Angels Gate Cultural Center in Los Angeles; Bellarmine University in Louisville; Hanesbrand Theatre Gallery, Associated Artists, and Blissful Gallery and Studios in Winston-Salem, NC; SoHo House x Buckhead Art & Company in Atlanta; the Central Gallery at Revolution Mill, Studio 503, and Center for Visual Arts in Greensboro. Johnson's photographs have been published by Darling Magazine, Fourteen Hills Press, and The Coraddi, and she's received acknowledgments in numerous media outlets including but not limited to the CulturePower Podcast, Click Magazine's "20 Women Changing Photography," Call + Response Journal, The Coastal Post, and All the Pretty Bird's 2019 article entitled "Who’s Inspiring Us Right Now." These four works were most recently included in Behind the Mask, curated by Sarah Umles for Angels Gate Cultural Center.