Grace Johnson & Liz Trapp - In Bloom

In Bloom brings together the work of Grace Johnson and Liz Trapp in a meditation on growth, memory, and the quiet transformations embedded in everyday life. Though working in distinct mediums, both artists root their practices in an attentive observation of the natural world and the intimate spaces we inhabit, revealing how cycles of blooming – botanical, emotional, and domestic – shape our sense of time and belonging.

Grace Johnson, native of Columbus, is a fiber artist who works with natural dyes, plant material (flowers, leaves, lichen, bark, seeds, roots) and natural cloth (protein and cellulose) in an art medium called botanical printing or eco-printing. Drawing on her love and knowledge of the natural world, Johnson creates tapestries and heirloom and commemorative cloth as well as functional items for everyday use. She sources and/or forages her material from her dye garden, windfall, Kroger’s onion bins, forests, creeks, and friends. She divides her time between Ohio and the state of Chiapas in the south of Mexico.

Liz Trapp is an artist and textile designer living in Columbus, Ohio. Her work is inspired by nature, memory, and she uses the kitchen table as the inspiration for most of her still-life work – thinking about it as the fulcrum of the house, a marker of the interior, domestic space, and the backdrop of so many familial moments of connection. She has her BFA in Painting and Drawing, her MFA in Painting, and her MA in the History of Art. Her work has been featured in the publication 'New American Paintings' (2013 MFA Annual #105) and has been shown internationally. She attended a residency at the Pont-Aven School of Art in Brittany, France, and is a Gabr Foundation Fellow to Egypt. Liz is currently Associate Professor of Art & Art History at Columbus College of Art & Design.