CV
Kara Cobb Johnson (born 1976) is a visual artist based in Pilsen, Chicago. Cobb Johnson trained as a sculptor, video, and public artist in Minneapolis, MN, and graduated from Northeastern Illinois University in 2000. Her work investigates form, materials, and space while offering immersive installations that present an empowered female hand. She has curated independently as part of her practice and received a Visual Arts Certificate from the University of Chicago, Graham School of Continuing Studies in 2016. Cobb Johnson has been awarded the Individual Artist Project Grants from both The Illinois Arts Council and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events to create new works in 2019 and 2023. She held panelist and executive board positions for Chicago Sculpture International and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events in 2023 and 2024.
Materials, light, reflection, and color are language in form. My work primarily presents an empowered female artist’s hand and choices. I consider how a gallery is positioning itself in its community and the greater conversation of art. This connects my work with audiences in specific locations and times. I create in a series with multitudes of repeated forms. Through modular installation, the elements coalesce in moments a viewer discovers as they move through a space and into my work. Clouds, waterfalls, and soundwave type lines reveal patterns that are nonstructural. I emphasize gravity’s insistence to push and pull weight. My work evolves differently than work that is static and realized and then installed. Different parts of the work can be found by the viewer as time passes, allowing them to experience decisions I make when creating the work. This phenomenon or the “feeling of seeing” empowers seeking and expanding perspective.