Johanna Barron, 5918 SE Reedway, Portland, OR. 97206
503-545-4080, jnbarron@ucdavis.edu
EDUCATION
MFA, University of California, Davis, 2010
B.A The Evergreen State College, 1995
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Associate Instructor. Instructor of Record for Introduction to Drawing and Painting,
University of California, Davis, Department of Art, Summer & Fall 2009 & Summer 2010.
Responsible for planning course, organizing demonstrations, running critiques, and
grading. Course objectives included: developing the skills and understanding of
proportion, form, space, line, and gesture; gaining confidence and familiarity with mark
making and materials, building skills through traditional and experimental drawing and
painting techniques, and developing the verbal and analytical skill necessary to critically
examine studio work.
Teaching Assistant. University of California, Davis, Department of Art. September 2008
to June 2010. Classes include figure drawing, printmaking, landscape painting and
intermediate drawing. Duties: developing assignments, group and individual critique,
selected reading discussions and technical demonstrations.
Wood and Sculpture Shop Assistant. University of California, Davis, Department of Art.
2008-2010. Responsibilities included the oversight and safety of students while they
completed their projects out of class. Provided students with technical, creative and
problem solving support, appropriate tool use and checkout, machinery use, cleaning
and maintaining the wood and sculpture workshop.
Research Technician. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of
Biology, April 2005 to November 2006. Duties: training and supervision of undergraduate
students, preparation of aqueous samples for isotopic analysis, identification and
weighing of organic materials, processing aquatic invertebrate samples, acid washing,
ordering laboratory equipment and supplies, data entry.
Supervisor: Barbara R. Niederlehner , Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Department Assistant. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of
Biology. As needed from 2004-2006. Scheduled and coordinated new faculty hire visits
and lectures, redesigned department lobby, signage and educational spaces, ordered
and installed display spaces and created biological and educational displays.
Research Technician.Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of
Biology August 2002 to April 2005. Duties: hiring, training and supervision of
undergraduate students in the field and laboratory, responsible for maintenance of safety
equipment and procedure and student safety trainings, pollinator identification and
observation, implementation and maintenance of field experiments, hand pollination,
identification and weighing of plant materials, operation of lyopholizer and refractometer,
microscopic pollen analysis, leaf solution extraction and chromatographic analysis,
collection and analysis of nectar, establishment and rearing of insect colonies, data
entry. Supervisor: Dr. Lynn Adler, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Research Technician. University of Georgia, Institute of Ecology, February-April 2003,
2004. Duties: establishment and maintenance of field and laboratory experiments, nectar
manipulation and collection, hand pollination and flower emasculation, pollen
identification and counting, microscope slide preparation, data entry.
Supervisor: Dr. Rebecca Irwin, Dartmouth College
Research Assistant. Oregon State University, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, June
1997 to September 1998. Duties: Design and maintenance of field experiments, plant
collection and identification, aquatic invertebrate sampling, electro-shock fish surveying,
forest biomass inventory, allometric quantification of woody riparian plants, stream
channel geomorphic surveying, photography.
Supervisor: Dr. Boone Kauffman, Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, USFS
PUBLICATIONS
Barron, J. 2000. Wild Earth 10:69
David N. Sharp, Amanda J. Lentz-Ronning, Johanna Barron and Lynn S.Adler, The
Effect of Larval Diet and Sex on Nectar Nicotine Feeding Preferences in Manduca Sexta
(Lepidoptera: Sphingdae), Florida Entomologist, 2009
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2015 Chasing Justice, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA.
2015 Acres of Walls, Disjecta, Portland, OR.
2013 FILE, Electronic language International Festival, highlike.
2013 twoseven and annasatoko gallery, Group Show: «friends», NYC.
2013 Peekskill Project, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, NY.
2012 Still Life with Unfolding Rock, PDX Contemporary Art, Portland, OR.
2012 Hors Pistes 2012 // Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.
2011 Over My Dead Body, Root Division, San Francisco, CA.
2011 Darkness and Light, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA.
2011 Domesticity Un-hinged, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA.
2010    Dance You Monster to My Soft Song, The Richard L. Nelson Gallery, Davis, CA.
2010    The Ellen Hansen Exhibition, UC Davis, Davis, CA.
2010    Art in Place, Artist in Residence Exhibition, McLaughlin Natural Reserve, CA.
2009    The Pence Gallery, First year MFA Exhibition, Davis, CA.
2008    Quality Pictures Gallery, Group Show, Portland, OR.
2008    The Life Gallery, Solo Exhibition, Portland, OR.
2007    Lewis and Clark College, Group show, Portland, OR.
2006    Base Camp, Group show, Portland, OR.
2005    XYZ Gallery, Summer Retrospective, Blacksburg, VA.
2001    Willamette Valley Juried Exhibition, Corvallis, OR.
2000    Newport Visual Arts Center, Human Form, Newport, OR.
COLLECTIONS
The Nelson Fine Art Gallery, University of California Davis, Davis, CA.
Lane Community College, permanent collection, Eugene, OR.
HONORS & AWARDS
2015 Oregon Arts Commission, Opportunity Grant
2015 The Ford Family Foundation, Opportunity Grant
2015 Regional Arts and Culture Council, Project Grant, Portland, Or.
2011 The Graduate Fellow Award and Residency, Headlands Center for the Arts, CA.
2010    The Robert Arneson Award, UC Davis.
2010    Joan Mitchell Foundation Award Nominee, UC Davis
2010 Freemond Gadberry Award, UC Davis
2009    Graduate Research Fellowship, UC Davis
2009 David Robertson Graduate Fellowship and Residency
2009    Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship nominee, UC Davis
2009    The Departmental Mary Lou Osborne Award, UC Davis
2009    Freemond Gadberry Award, UC Davis
1994    Purchase Award, Lane Community College, Eugene, OR
1991    Sobel Memorial Scholarship, San Francisco Art Institute
ARTIST STATEMENT
Through site-specific installation, sculpture, painting, photography, video and short
stories, I explore our relationship to objects and spaces such as hotel rooms, theme
parks, government institutions, caves and the cosmos. Exploring cultural perceptions of
taste and an interest in the artificial, my work considers the ways in which unfamiliar
spaces and objects affect us and how environments may become psychological
extensions of the self. I am particularly inspired by Schopenhauer's feeling of the
Sublime, wherein he describes the ‘Full Feeling’ of the Sublime as the pleasure of
seeing a violent object of magnitude and one that could destroy the observer, and the
‘Fullest Feeling’ of the Sublime as the immensity of Universe's extent or duration.
BIO
Johanna Barron works in a variety of media including installation, photography, writing,
painting, and video. Her work incorporates concepts of biology and material culture.
Among her interests are interceptions between artificial and natural environments, the
boundaries of public and private spaces, and the cultural/biological function for the
accumulation of objects. Barron, whose background is in Biology and Art, received her
MFA from The University of California, Davis. She spent a year as a Graduate Fellow of
The Headlands Center for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited nationally and
internationally. She is a fifth generation Oregonian, lives and works in Portland, Oregon.