Iskra Johnson is a Northwest native. Her unique perspective on sense of place comes from a childhood raised in two very different environments, shuttling between the pastoral quiet of a pony farm at the foot of Mt. Rainier, and a political activist home in Seattle’s inner city. She draws inspiration from these early experiences of the extremes of rural and urban experience. In her work she is interested in the juxtaposition of multiple points of view, and her themes reflect the friction of opposites: a conversation between contemplation and engagement and that unexpected place where silence and noise collide.

Iskra’s work spans many genres, including abstraction, collage, botanical art and industrial and pastoral landscape. She works in both digital and tactile media and is particularly interested in the blending of photographic and hand-made image. She is skilled in many forms of communication and adapts her visual language to express the requirements of her subject matter. The overarching theme woven through her work is impermanence, and she incorporates the textural qualities of wabi-sabi to evoke the passage of time and place. Her studio overlooks a pond and garden which is inspiration for her botanical work and fine art stationary line, The Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena. Iskra received her BFA in Painting from the University of Washington.

You will be able to take a peek into her studio with work-in-progress and then spend time in her home gallery and garden, which are some of her main sources of inspiration.

You will find a variety of completed work and work for sale as well as her recent line of botanical prints and cards.

I work in both high tech and analog media. My background is in letterform design, design, and calligraphy. In my fine art printmaking I bring together decades of design training and digital technology with photography and intuitive painting. My lens is the contemplative moment, and the work that emerges is as much about the act of seeing as it is about what is seen.

Iskra’s studio has two steps up to a low front porch.