Johnna Arnold

Title: From Inside This Earth / sunshine is in everything we do 

On View: December 4 2019-February 4 2020

Work Description: From Inside This Earth focuses on the actual material that drives much of our civilization - petroleum. To create the images I put small amounts of used motor oil onto a glass tray in a traditional color enlarger, inverting and enlarging a material commonly used to get us to where we are going. Through an appreciation for the unintended complexities embedded in the detritus of our society, we see the interconnectedness in all that the earth provides. I relish in the beauty found in the common, toxic substance of oil, a culmination of millions of years of sunshine baked inside our earth. 

For the Add Space Project, I wanted to connect the beauty of these images to another interest of mine; freeway signage. Using Highway Gothic, a font created by the United States Federal Highway Administration for road signage in the Americas, I layered an instructional message onto these images made of light, from light: Sunshine Is In Everything We Do. 

Bio: Johnna Arnold is an artist, photographer, educator, and urban farmer based in Oakland, CA. Her work involves reenvisioning the systems that support us; reframing underlying societal structures to reconsider how we live with one another and with the planet. Johnna received her BA in Photography from Bard College in 1996, and her MFA from Mills College in 2005. She teaches classes in photography to graduate and undergraduate students at the San Francisco Art Institute. Johnna has worked as an Artist-in-Residence at Banff Center for the Arts, Kala Art Institute, and RayKo Photography. She has exhibited at venues including the California Museum of Photography, Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco Camerawork, the Oakland International Airport, and the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. Her work is part of public collections including Pier 24 in San Francisco and UNESCO in Paris, France.

Artist’s Website: www.johnnaarnold.com

Work Location: 591 W 3RD St.