About — Michelle Lee Johnson

Michelle Lee Johnson

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Michelle Lee Johnson (b. 1996 California, USA) lives and works in London. They hold a Bachelors (Hons) in Interdisciplinary Studies from New York University and have recently completed their Masters of Fine Art from Goldsmiths University, London, UK. Selected duo and group exhibitions include Plicnik Space Initiative (London, UK), INDUSTRA (Brno, Czech Republic), Hartslane Gallery (London, UK), Salón ACME (Mexico City, Mexico), Deptford X (London, UK), Bacio Collective (Brno, Switzerland), Emily Harvey Foundation (New York, NY), Artlab Gallery (Ontario, Canada), and Parasol Projects (New York, NY). They have been awarded the Eaton Fund grant, Tower Hamlets Community Fund, and an Art Fund fellowship at Cell Project Space.

Working across sculpture, moving image, performative gestures, and installation, their practice examines processes of subjectivity, particularly the coercive mechanisms through which behaviour, desire, and affect are regulated. Drawing on the aesthetic languages of kitsch, commerce, and popular culture, they investigate how desires for connection, authenticity, and fulfilment are produced. Techniques of reproduction form sculptural interventions where objects hold attachments to belonging and transformation. In doing so, their work reconfigures the material consequences of physical and ideological infrastructures to expose how a system that manufactures wants and withholds promises produces fantasies of freedom and authenticity.

They have a particular interest in sites that collapse a boundary between public and private—the street, the surveilled public square, or the train—to probe questions of ownership and authorship. At times, a city animal operates as a mirror for systems of value, where staged encounters attempt to recast our relationship to place and nonhuman entities.

Education

2022 - 2024 Goldsmiths University
Master of Fine Art, London, UK

2015 - 2019 New York University
BA Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York, USA
magna cum laude

Awards and Residencies

2025
Artist in residence at INDUSTRA Art
Selected for Plicnik Space Initiative Crit Sessions
2024
Eaton Fund
Tower Hamlets Grant, project funding
2023
   Art-Fund Fellowship at Cell Project Space
2019
Thesis Mothers of Our Pearls awarded Honors
Horn Family Fund for Environmental Studies, project funding
2016
Founder’s Day Award

Duo Exhibitions

2025
Force with no net sum, INDUSTRA, Brno, CZ

Selected Group Exhibitions

2026
Studio 1.2, Guilds House, Rollins St, London, UK

2025
Step 3. ????, Plicnik Space Initiative, London, UK
Despite Collective Part II, Ethereal Maison, London, UK
1, 2, 3, Alt!, Project sitnaltA, Hypha Studios Marble Arch, London, UK
2024
A Letter from a Friend, Bacio Collective, Bern, SWTZ
be still [Degree Show], Goldsmiths, London, UK
Salón ACME No. 11, Salón ACME, Mexico City, Mexico
2023
Deptford X Fringe, London, UK
In-term, London, UK 
Approximate Distance, Hartslane, London, UK 
Nightlife, Loose Screws, London, UK 
Loess Collective presents Taste the Difference, London, UK
2022
Washed Ashore, Fort Tilden Beach, New York, USA
2021
Years ago, still show, The Emily Harvey Foundation, New York, USA
2019
Museum for Future Fossils, Artlab Gallery, Ontario, CAN
Gallatin Arts Festival, Gallatin Galleries, New York, USA 
2018
Slicing, Burning, Boiling, Parasol Projects, New York, USA
2017
Climate Action Conference, Tisch, New York, USA
Cartas de Cuba, Ludwig Foundation, Havana, CUBA

Public Programming

2024
Permit to Dream: Touch, Sight, and Sound Method, Cell Project Space, London, UK
2024
Sunday Service: Artist Talk & Tour, London, UK
2019
Half-Title Print Fair, Gallatin School, New York, USA

Press
‘On Emilia González Salgado and Michelle Lee Johnson’s force with no net sum, a response by Lu Rose
Cunningham’, Lu Rose Cunningham, The Writers’ Room, 2026.
‘Issue 35: Michelle Lee Johnson’, Feature and interview with Richard Starbuck, Floorr Magazine, 2025.
‘Step 3. ???? at Plicnik Space Initiative’, Review by Issey Scott, Post-Art Clarity, 2025.
‘graduate auction initiative starts low’, My work in the Filthy Fox Auction covered by Melanie Gerlis,
published online and in print on The Financial Times FT Weekender, 2023.

Publications
2026
‘Manual: force with no net sum’, Emilia González Salgado & Michelle Lee Johnson, 2026
‘A Finely Tuned Battery of Senses’, Published by Cell Project Space, London, 2026
2019
‘Missed Connections’, Michelle Lee Johnson, New York, 2019
2017
‘The Gallatin Review: Volume 32’, Published by New York University, New York, 2017

2026