Qualifications
2009 Master of Visual Arts, Monash University
2006 Diploma of Art (Visual Art), Victoria University
1993 Bachelor of Arts (English, Australian Studies), University of Queensland
Public Art
2017 Love Lakes, community printmaking & mural project with Tiffany Forster, Lakes Entrance,
2016 Overflow, glass and bronze artwork - commission for Australian WWI memorial in Belgium
2015 Meeting Place, etched stainless steel sculpture with Wanda Bennett, Mackay QLD
2015 Shelter, Corten steel sculpture for East Gippsland Art Gallery, Bairnsdale VIC
2014 Hover, suspended sculpture for Mackay Base Hospital, QLD
2013 Presence, and The Gathering, with Donna Maree Robinson, Jezzine Barracks Public Art Project, Townsville QLD
2013 Chiming Tree, sound sculpture with Fiona Bishop-Vuibeqa, Andergrove, QLD
Collaborative Projects
2017,18,19 Illuminate, light sculpture installation, Mackay Botanic Gardens with Wanda Bennett, Donna Robinson, Lalune Croker,
Cheb Jeffrey
2018 Plastic Crochet Galaxy, Frouteville, Lakes Entrance VIC, with Rachael Pollac, Kelly Lawler & Don Ashby
2014 Horse Lanterns for Spirited exhibition, National Museum of Australia, ACT with Wanda Bennett
2014 Avant Garden, weaving and light project, Wintermoon Festival, Camerons' Pocket, QLD
2012-13 Memory Paths, multimedia production for Mackay 150, collaboration with Donna Maree Robinson and Fiona Bishop-Vuibeqa
2011 Carousel, Light Collective, with Wanda Bennett, Fiona Bishop and Magdy Shiha, Mackay Festival of Arts, QLD
2010 Art By Night, Light Collective, Paxton's Warehouse, Mackay, QLD
Solo Exhibitions
2013 Open Studio, Pioneer Valley Artists Trail, QLD
2012 Pop-Up Gallery, Pioneer Valley Artists Trail, QLD
2010 Deep Structure, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery (Niche Gallery), QLD
2009 Memory Surfacing, Angela Robarts-Bird Gallery, Gasworks Arts Park, Albert Park, VIC
2009 Maps of the Heart, Gargett Gallery, Gargett, QLD
2008 Sand Traveller, Brunswick Street Gallery, Fitzroy, VIC
2007 Immersion, Mackay Town Hall Gallery, Mackay, QLD
Selected Group Exhibitions
2019 Alpine Summers, Falls Creek
2018 Fresh off the Mountain, Great Alpine Gallery
2015 Summer Showcase, East Gippsland Art Gallery, Bairnsdale VIC
2014 Mackay Conservation Group Exhibition, Mackay, QLD
Arts & Edges Conference, Kalgoorlie, WA, screening of Memory Paths
Reactivate Morwell, VIC, screening of Memory Paths
Art on Show, Mackay, QLD
2013 Memory Paths, projected installation at Mackay Sugar Classical in the Canefields, Greenmount Homestead, Mackay;
with Donna Maree Robinson and Fiona Bishop-Vuibeqa
2012 Looking Forward, Looking Back: 150 years of Mackay, Artspace Mackay, QLD
2011 Strand Ephemera, Townsville, QLD
Tree of Life, Royal North Shore Hospital, NSW
Printbank Awards, Artspace Mackay, QLD
2010 Connect10, Level 17 Artspace, Flinders St, Melbourne, VIC
Hiromi Hotel Mackay Art Farm, Mackay, QLD
Caldera Art, Murwillumbah, NSW
Linden Postcard Show, Melbourne, VIC
Art on Show, Mackay, QLD
2009 Rio Tinto Alcan Martin Hansen Art Awards, Gladstone Regional Art Gallery, QLD
Shi!ft, Reverse Garbage, West End, QLD
Subject Matters, Artspace Mackay, QLD
Artstreet, Sydney Street, Mackay, QLD
Art on Show, Mackay, QLD
Whitsunday Marine Art Show, Airlie Beach, QLD
Sarina Art Extravaganza, Sarina, QLD
2008 Re:Connect, Level 17 Artspace, Flinders St, Melbourne, VIC
Rio Tinto Alcan Martin Hansen Art Awards, Gladstone Regional Art Gallery, QLD
Regional Art Awards, Flying Arts, QLD
2007 Metamorphosis, Tracey Johnson & Jenny Leigh, Gallery 314, Richmond, VIC
Rio Tinto Aluminium Martin Hansen Art Awards, Gladstone Regional Art Gallery, QLD
Flying Arts Regional Art Award, Rockhampton Art Gallery, QLD
RAW07: Regional Artist Women: Belonging, Lagoons Gallery, Mackay, QLD
Landcare and Wildlife Exhibition, Arthouse Gallery, Mackay, QLD
20 Perspectives, Dinner Plain, VIC
The Art4Aid Prize, World Vision, Victorian Society of Artists' Gallery, East Melbourne, VIC
Light of Life, Centenary Religious Art Prize, CCTC, Mulgrave, VIC
2006 Victoria University Graduate Exhibition, VU Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
Victorian Campus Art Prize & Exhibition, Per Square Metre, VIC
2005 Homage to Modern Masters, Port Art Gallery, Port Melbourne, VIC
Victoria University Art Prize, Fitzroy Gallery, VIC
Victorian Campus Art Prize & Exhibition, Box Hill Community Arts Centre, VIC
1993 Fringe Festival Group Exhibition, Darwin Visual Arts Association, Darwin, NT
Christmas Exhibition, Darwin Visual Arts Association, Darwin, NT
Artist in Community Projects
2019 Living River: Waterbugs, Poetry and Stone Cairns, and art and environment project along the Poets Walk, Swifts Creek
2016 Festoon of Flowering Filaments, Frouteville, Nicholson River Winery, VIC
2015 Great Alpine Gallery Winter Workshops: Cyanotype Workshops
(f)route Tour, Tambo Valley, VIC, Artists’ Studios and Workshops
(f)lanterns for (F)routeville, Tambo Valley, VIC
2014 Wintermoon Weaving Project, Wintermoon Festival, Camerons Pocket, QLD
Cyanotype Workshops, Artspace Mackay
(f)route Tour, Tambo Valley, VIC, Artists’ Studios and Workshops
2013 Creative Generation Workshop for Education QLD, Flying Arts Tutor, Artspace Mackay
2013 Artist in Community Workshops, Djarindjin, Dampier Peninsula, Broome WA
2008-13 Artist in Schools and Community, River Rock to Mountain Top Festival, QLD
2012 Community Workshops, Woodlands Public Art Project
2011 Community Workshops, Strand Ephemera, Townsville, QLD
2009 Artist in Schools and Community, Bowen, Emerald & Marian, QLD
Arts Management
2005 Cultural Programs Coordinator, Hume City Council, VIC
2002 Special Events Coordinator, Hume City Council, VIC
1997 Arts & Recreation Officer, Pine Creek Community Government Council, NT:
1995 Senior Projects Officer, Festival of Darwin, NT
1993 Community Arts & Cultural Development Officer, Northern Territory Arts Council, NT
1990 Local Coordinator, Darwin Symphony Orchestra in Katherine Gorge, NT
1990 Workshop Coordinator, Yulngu Art & Craft Workshops, Katherine, NT
1989 Festival Coordinator, Inaugural Katherine Arts Festival, NT
Residencies
2014 La Muse Artists Retreat, Labastide Esparbairenque, France
Media & Publications
Weekend Australian, Stories Set in Stone, 2014
Outdoor Design Source, Public Art Precinct for QLD, 2014
Filming a Memory, ABC Open, 2013
Pop-Up Gallery, ABC Open, 2012
Art By Night, ABC Review and Interview, 2010
Maps of the Heart, ABC Review and Interview, 2009
Deep Structure, Niche Gallery, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, QLD, 2010
Light Boxes, Inhabitat Magazine, 2009
The Cliff and the Sea, Milk Crate Press, Melbourne 2011, pp 22, 25, 34
Art By Night Catalogue, Light Collective, Mackay 2010
Art Monthly, #231 July 2001, p 64, Art By Night
Artist's Profile
Tracey Johnson is a full time artist working in a wide range of media, including public art, light-based interactive work, installations, painting, printmaking and digital imaging. She has recently completed public art projects in Belgium, Mackay, Townsville and Bairnsdale, including a lightweight suspended metal sculpture, glass encapsulating digital imagery, laser-cut corten steel and etched stainless steel sculptural works. She enjoys working in collaboration with other artists and did so with many of these artworks.
Tracey has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Melbourne, Townsville and Mackay, but her curiosity about new materials and technologies has seen her move further into the realm of interactive and large scale three-dimensional work over the past few years.
Tracey often works on projects with a community interface. In collaboration with digital artist Donna Maree Robinson and sound artist Fiona Bishop-Vuibeqa, she produced a series of digital storytelling projects with people from a South Sea Islander background. These works have been projected at arts events throughout the country.
Tracey conducts art workshops in the community, including constructing large scale lanterns for a lantern parade and illuminated installations in the Mackay region for many years. She delivered a series of creative concept development workshops in rural communities across north QLD, and facilitated an environmentaly-focused weaving and light project in the Tambo Valley.
In addition to her arts practice Tracey worked for nine years in the Northern Territory in community arts and cultural development in remote communities and in Darwin, and then in arts and cultural development in local government in Melbourne. She completed a Master of Visual Arts through Monash University in 2009 and and undertook an artist residency in France in 2014.
Tracey has made her long term home in the foothills of the Victorian Alps in East Gippsland.
Artist's Statement
Fractal patterns are everywhere I look: in river systems, cellular structures, crystalline rock fractures, galaxies, aerial maps of human activity and in the human body - even wild and unpredictable chaos has patterns of its own. Our habits, bodies, and behaviours all echo the off-beat symmetry of the fractal patterns around us, and this speaks to me of belonging, of an embeddedness in the natural world. My work explores this connection, and curently I am working on applying my creative practive to a regenerative agriculture context.
I often use found and recycled materials in my work, which revolves around the themes of transformation and regeneration. I draw inspiration from the natural world and the way our fractal selves are deeply connected to that world. The flux of fracturing and re-making in natural processes is mirrored in my own human experience, and foundational in art-making.
Exploring the unknown is important to me in the creative process. I work intuitively with the natural tendencies of the materials to see what they are suggesting, being a co-creator in the morphogenesis of a form. I experiment with many different kinds of art forms, including 3D objects, painting, printmaking, photography, installations, light based and ephemeral works.
I find embarking on a creative journey with other artists very energising, opening up a myriad of possibilities and providing a community of support. I have facilitated many community based art projects, and enjoy seeing what the creative process brings when people work together in a hands-on workshop environment.
I have lived in many places around Australia, including the top end of the NT, northern NSW, Melbourne, Central QLD and now in the mountains of East Gippsland, VIC.