Niki Johnson’s Process of a Feminist Artist

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Photo by Tom Jenz

Niki Johnson

Niki Johnson

Good artists are poets. Artists invent and orchestrate forms that convince and move you, that take you places where your imagination expands. The best artists have a unique and compelling style that formulates and incites emotional and cognitive responses from viewers. Think of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Edvard Munch’s The Scream and Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks at the Diner.

Artists often employ metaphors that transferring the meaning of one thing to another thing. For instance, Picasso’s 1937 abstract painting of body parts, Guernica, represents the horror and chaos of war.

Take the Milwaukee artist, Niki Johnson and her Capital V (pronounced “vee”) exhibit at the Var Gallery in Downtown Milwaukee (through Sept. 28). The exhibit includes renderings of all 50 state capitol buildings as well as the capitol buildings of six U.S. territories, all patterned out of Swarovski Crystal. The portraits are scaled to one-tenth the height of the actual capitol buildings and hold between 150 and 3,000 crystals per pattern, 60,000 shimmering crystals in the combined patterns.

As a symbol of equity and pleasure in these buildings of power, an embedded clitoris at the base of the capitol steps feminizes the domed capitols. Framed in layered shadow boxes, each rendering floats over an image of a “virgin” landscape. The landscapes capture the natural beauty of each state and territory.

Dedication is a tired, overused word, but Niki Johnson’s dedication is extraordinary. For nine years, she worked on her Capitol V series that she says symbolizes the erosion of federal protections for abortion to where state governments limit women’s bodies to a confusion of state laws.

“Our nation is born through our bodies,” Johnson said about her exhibit, “so how and when this nation is built is ours to decide. Decisions about access to abortion, birth control, hormone therapy, and IVF have no place in the state house. Our physical autonomy, identity, and personal freedoms are fundamental human rights. During the nine years I worked on this series, active erosion of federal protections for abortion led to the overturning of Roe v Wade, placing state governments in control of the very bodies that birth this nation.”

I figured Niki Johnson was well worth talking with. Not long ago, she welcomed me for a conversation in her studio. I listened. She talked.

Johnson’s Background

I was born in 1977 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Shortly after, my family moved to New Mexico. I grew up between Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Corrales, relocating for my parents’ jobs and better public schools. Both of my parents worked in state government—my mom as a social worker and later a Bureau Chief, and my dad as a counselor. I finished high school in two and a half years thanks to a super cool vice principal who helped me enroll in night classes and take credited internships so I could graduate early.

At New Mexico Highlands University I became friends with a group of students who were into printmaking, bronze-casting and all things metal. That’s where I fell in love with process-based art making, which remains central to my studio practice today. I couldn’t afford materials for class and as a part-time waitress, I struggled with going into further debt for a degree in art. I also felt torn between the world of working and the world of school. A year before I was set to graduate, I dropped out of college and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.

For five years, I worked in restaurants between Mill Valley and San Francisco, rock climbed and enrolled in a class or two at a few community colleges for fun. It was good to simply enjoy life, seek adventure and reestablish my relationship with education as recreational sport. I met my husband while climbing. After we married, we moved to Memphis for a job for him and school for me. 

In 2008, I graduated from the University of Memphis, with a BFA with a focus in Sculpture and Printmaking. In 2009, I began a MA/MFA program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and three years later, just ahead of my 35th birthday, I graduated, having spent most of my time in the Sculpture and Ceramics departments. I’ve been a resident and practicing artist in Milwaukee since the fall of 2012.

Her Process

Most of my art take tens to hundreds of hours to complete, which means part of my life is woven in each artwork. Each piece reflects time spent both in action and meditation. I don’t seek resolution through my art, nor controversy, rather I am invested in making art that creates a space for needed conversations and understandings to happen. It is important to me that the final artwork is dynamic enough to honor the people who take the time to engage with it. If they decided to take action after and make the world a bit better, amazing.                              

Her Materials

I find most of my materials in thrift stores once the basic parameters for a piece are sketched out. I see materials as essential in communicating what a piece of art is about. Thrift stores are filled with cultural ephemera, which has a way of speaking to us all. Feeling familiar with the materials, I make a piece that establishes a personal connection for both me and the viewer to work from. I find that relationship essential when creating art that speaks to complicated aspects of identity.

In the studio, I often work in materials that are new to me, scaffolding upon techniques picked up from the last project. I almost always end up scouring the internet to find more of a material to complete a piece, and sometimes take night classes to learn a needed technique if I can’t just make it up as I go. It’s not a linear process, and sometimes years pass before I retool a technology to make something new. For example, in 2006, I created my cross-stitch portrait of Paris Hilton (Le Tart). In 2008, this led to larger cross-stitch portraits of Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Edwards (The Great American Bake-Off). Then, this informed a grocery bag weaving of Amy Winehouse (Corner Drug) in 2009. 

 The Pope in Condoms

When inter-stuffing, folding and weaving non- lubricated condoms through half inch garden mesh for Eggs Benedict in 2013, I was again drawing upon women’s traditional craft, like in the previous artworks. But this time the material and method had shifted to draw focus to Emeritus Pope Benedict’s statement in 2009 when he said condoms helped spread AIDS. Eggs Benedict is now part of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s permanent collection.

Hills & Valleys

Hills & Valleys is a large-scale sculpture I completed in 2016. It is made out of aluminum signage from five Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin health centers closed under former Governor Scott Walker and also from a mirror from Hobby Lobby. With the help of 30 volunteers, a kiln, a metal sheer, a few hammers and a jeweler’s punch, I repurposed nearly all of the signage. The final sculpture is pointillist rendering of a woman’s hips, groin and thighs made out of punched aluminum circles from the signs. Atop her pubic mound is a vajazzle of our nation’s Capitol made out of the mirror from Hobby Lobby. It is important with this piece that the audience see themselves reflected in the shape of the government, as we are the ones responsible for electing those who are in power.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg

In 2021, I spent eight months during COVID lockdown stitching a life-size portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s flag draped coffin surrounded by sprays of white roses out of thousands of antique buttons sourced from thrift stores, estate sales and on Ebay. I made Justice in Repose (RBG) as a way to process her lifetime contribution to our nation, as well the impact her death had on the balance of the United States Supreme Court.

Capitol V Series

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Photo by Jim Escalante

Artwork from Niki Johnson's "Capitol V" series

Artwork from Niki Johnson's "Capitol V" series

During the nine years I worked on my “Capitol V” series, active erosion of federal protections for abortion led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade placing state governments in control of the very bodies that birth this nation. Returning to this project over the years has involved connecting with each state and thinking of the people I love living there as bizarre and restrictive state laws become part of their lives. 

Humor and joy are important activities in maintaining resilience. Vajazzle, as a form of sexual fetishism and a visual language, is inherently playful and irreverent. When packed densely together the crystals can appear armor-like, protective, yet celebratory. There is power in privacy and self-exploration, and healthy sexual expression should empower whoever is involved. In “Capitol V,” vajazzle becomes a symbol for freedom. 

This series includes renderings of all 50 state capitol buildings as well as the capitol buildings of six inhabited U.S. territories, patterned out of Swarovski Crystal. The portraits are scaled to one-tenth the height of the actual capitol buildings and hold between 150 and 2,800 crystals per pattern, nearly 60,000 crystals glimmering together. An embedded clitoris at the base of each of the capitol steps feminizes these often-domed capitol buildings, situating equity and pleasure in the halls of power.

The artworks are framed in layered shadow boxes, with each vajazzle appearing to float over an image of a “virgin” landscape. These landscapes capture the natural beauty of each state and territory. The interplay of the structured patterns and the landscape images creates a dialogue between the manicured and the untamed, the governed and the wild. 

I scanned all images from postcards within the public domain at the Picture Collection at the New York City Public Library Main Branch in Manhattan. I feel it is imperative in this time in history to draw focus to the layered relationships our bodies have with both federal and state governments. It inspired my choice to open this exhibition on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. I created “Capitol V” to draw focus to the negotiation of power between women’s bodies and state governments across our nation. It exists as a reminder that it is we, the people, who hold the power. My body. My nation. My vote.

Niki Johnson’s “Capitol V” is on display at the Var Gallery through September 28: visit vargallery.com.

For more information about Niki Johnson, visit her website, nikijohnson.com.