TATIANA JOHNSON
*1973, Poland. Lives and works in Bern, Switzerland.
Tatiana Johnson is a Polish-American artist who works across photography, textile processes, and spatial installation. She holds an MFA from Zurich University of the Arts. Her practice explores how photographic images can move beyond the flat surface and become soft, material presences shaped by light, shadow, movement, and encounter.
Using sublimation printing on textile, stitching, layering, and constructed supports, Johnson creates works in which fragments, seams, shadows, and support structures remain visible. These elements are not hidden or resolved into a unified whole; they become part of how the image is held, interrupted, and perceived.
Her work considers how distinct forms can remain separate while entering into relation. Images unfold across translucent surfaces, provisional frames, and shifting spatial conditions, becoming less fixed representations than encounters between material, light, space, and viewer.
Member of Visarte (the Swiss National Association of Visual Artists.)
exhibitions – selection
2026 ‘Anything, Almost Everything‘, Werkhof Egelsee, Bern, Switzerland
2026 ‘Photography Now‘, CICA Museum, Seoul, South Korea
2025 ‘In Black and White‘, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, New York, U.S.A.
2025 ‘All Dimensions‘, MFA graduation exhibition, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
2024 ‘Espace de Refusé.e.x.s.’, Espace Libre, Biel/Bienne, Switzerland
2024 ‘At the premises of‘, ENTERPRISE, Zurich, Switzerland
2023 ‘Big, small, and many‘, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
2023 ‘Conditioner‘, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
2022 ‘2nd. Quanzhou International Image Biennial‘, Huaguang, China
2021 ‘Berührung‘, Foundation Course graduation exhibition, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
2021 ‘photoSCHWEIZ‘, Halle 550, Oerlikon, Switzerland
2020 ‘Japan: imprints on my soul‘, Amami am Walensee, Walenstadt, Switzerland
2010 ‘Chicago Art Open 2010‘, River East Art Center, Chicago, U.S.A.
prizes
2023 ‘ICFM photography competition’, 1st.place winner, Zurich, Switzerland
education
2022-2025 Master of Fine Arts – admitted ‘sur dossier,’ Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
2020-2022 Foundation Course, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
1996-2005 Associate of Arts – graduated with high honors, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL U.S.A
publications
2025 ‘LOVE BOOK‘ – Department of Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
2020 ‘Ein Hauch von Japan am Walensee‘, exhibition review in Sarganserländer, 10.01.20
2016 ‘B&W shorts: SEAT‘, artist book, Zurich, Switzerland, ISBN 978-1-36-439583-4
2017 ‘Ora Nui,’ literary journal, issue #3, Auckland, New Zealand, ISBN 799439049307