Symbolic Prose and Personal Politics (HELEN JOHNSON‪)‬ ART FICTIONS

Guest artist HELEN JOHNSON
joins JILLIAN KNIPE for this final episode of Series 5, to discuss her work via 'The Birds' by Tarjei Vesaas. Published originally in 1957, then by Penguin Random House in 2019, this short novel describes the relationship between Hege and her younger, mentally challenged brother Mattis. With a sense of non-judgemental simplicity and acute sensitivity, we join the siblings as they negotiate everyday life in partial isolation and on the edge of something happening.
HELEN and Jillian's conversation encompasses lightning, tenderness, siblings, gullibility, hiding, tapestry, holding, frustration, anguish, excavation, metaphors, equality, masking, knitting needles, dream worlds, shattered trees, portals, body punctures, art therapy, white supremacy, honest thieves, cartography lines, blinding flies, Oedipus complex, intergenerational privilege, psychotic structure, architectural blueprints, birthing shit, monetising colonialisation, not being othered, the weight of the work, creating a space for healing, writing being like a drawing, and a lot of Lacanian psychotherapy - a real learning experience !
 
HELEN JOHNSON
helenjohnson.net
'Opening' Pilar Corrias Savile Row til 6 Jan 2024
'Agency' Pilar Corrias 2019
'Warm Ties' ICA 2017
 
ARTISTS 
Aleksandra Waliszewska
Aliza Nisenbaum 
Bridget Riley
Christina Quarles
Denzil Forrester
Fred Williams
Georgiana Houghton
Joy Labinjo
Judy Watson
Katie Pratt
Laura Owens
Maja Ruznic
Marcus Coates 'The Directors' Artangel
Melanie Jackson
Nicole Eisenman
Njideka Akunyili Crosby 
Paola Balla
Rosie Mullan
Shanti Panchal
Yhonnie Scarce
AUTHORS + BOOKS
Darian Leader 'The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression' 2008
Jackie Wullschläger 'Monet: The Resless Vision' 2023
Jennifer Higgie 'The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World' 2023
Karl Ove Knausgaard
National Gallery of Australia 'Know My Name: Australian Women Artists Since 1900' 2021 Part 1 2022 Part 2
CURATORS + ART HISTORIANS
Helen Molesworth 'Dialogues' David Zwirner
Sarah McCrory
THEORISTS + ANALYSTS + ACTIVISTS
Anna Freud
Donald Winnicott
Jacques Lacan
Joy Shaverien
Melanie Klein
Meriki Onus
Sigmund Freud
Shirley Sharon-Zisser 'What Would a Lacanian Art Therapy Look Like'
Walter Benjamin
Wilfred Bion
GALLERIES + ART INSTITUTIONS
Glasgow International
ICA Institute of Contemporary Art
Kunstverein in Hamburg
Kingsgate Project Space
Latrobe University
MCA NSW Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
NGV National Gallery of Victoria
Pilar Corrias
SeMA Seoul Museum of Art
Tate Galleries