Images: Annie May Johnston
In-progress shot of necklace of polymer clay and hair, silkscreen on polymer, ancient lacrimarium vials.
Exhibition Dates: June 23rd – 29th, 2025 (visible 24 hours/day)
Artist Reception: Friday, June. 27, 7-9pm
About the Artist
Annie May Johnston is an artist and mother situated in the field of printmaking, often working towards the margins of the medium - employing new technologies alongside traditional processes. Through installation, objects, prints, and digital methods, she grapples with motherhood, mortality, and inherent failure. The combination of different print technologies, vocabularies, and spaces that she installs links to her interest in time, as she often tethers her work to moments of recent and ancient past, forging connections that she hopes will thread into the future.
Currently, Johnston is an Assistant Professor of Practice at The University of Texas at Austin where she serves as the Print Area head and is a faculty fellow of the Women and Gender Studies Program. She supports the Guest Artist in Print Program and is the faculty sponsor for the UT Riso Room. Johnston received her MFA in Print from The University of Texas at Austin and holds undergraduate degrees in Classics and Psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She has served as an assistant printmaker at Michael Woolworth Publications in Paris, specializing in traditional lithographic printmaking. Her work has been exhibited internationally and nationally, including shows in Basel, New York, Houston, and London.
This current body of work emerges from quiet nighttime sessions at my kitchen table—an ongoing performative jewelry practice that I've only recently begun to share publicly. These art pieces function in a space between wearable object and investigation into my body and mind's place in the universe. They inhabit multiple timeframes, connecting recent personal history with ancient cosmic processes and involve the processing of human-time and star-time. Drawing on the concept of "dustsceawung," a contemplation of dust, my practice considers how matter persists rather than disappears. I imagine these compositions as cosmic artifacts—creations formed from elements that exist throughout our universe, bridging the gap between intimate human experience and vast astronomical phenomena.
During a surgical recovery, I found unexpected connections to historical "Lover's Eyes"—intimate portrait miniatures from 1785 Britain commissioned as tokens of devotion or remembrance. These historical objects provide context for exploring my altered perception and my interest in contemporary astronomical imagery from the Webb Telescope, which has been sending back imagery of Cosmic Dawn—that transformative period when the first luminous objects appeared in our universe. I am invested in our quest to see and understand the birth of the universe and while doing so, our human birth.
For To Glow in the Dark, the presentation of these works on top of earthen craters and on molded shelves references both archaeological discovery and cosmic delivery while nodding to traditional jewelry displays. They serve as talismans that are lighthearted in their materials (children's beads, Sculpey, glow-
in-the-dark stars, and Shrinky Dinks) while also incorporating elements like real hair, ancient artifacts, and soil, in their attempt to consider both the bright and the dark.
Exhibition Dates: June. 23rd – June. 29th , 2025
Artist Reception: Friday, June. 27, 7-9 pm
Exhibition is viewable 24 hours/day
ICOSA Collective Gallery
916 Springdale Rd, Bldg 2, #102, Austin, TX 78702
Image: Window Dressing I, Gabel Karsten
About
Window Dressing highlights the work of new members, emerging, local, and underrepresented artists with short-run shows on view while the main gallery is closed for installation. Window Dressing artists will explore the potential of our storefront window space, experimenting with the possibilities of limitation. Exhibitions are on view 24/7 through the gallery’s front glass.
Would you like to apply for a Window Dressing Show?
We are always accepting WD proposals and our committee meets twice a year to determine scheduling.
Selection Process
Your application will be kept on file for one year. Applicants will be made aware that they may be considered for an ICOSA exhibition at any point for one year following the submission of their application.
How to Apply
Please email the following to info@icosacolective.com with “Window Dressing Proposal” in the title:
Proposal
CV
Portfolio website URL
Three images of your work
*Incomplete applications will not be considered
Questions?
Contact us at info@icosacollective.com