Kelly Johnson studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town and graduated in 2015. Majoring in photography and continuing to focus in the medium since, her work is inspired by the natural environment and places that she grew up in, in Cape Town. Focusing on maps, aerial photographs and city views has provided a core base for her artmaking process. The work consists of collage and photographic digital manipulation, but occasionally includes an exploration of other mediums such as painting and printmaking.

Kelly lives and works in Cape Town. She has exhibited on various group exhibitions around the city and was shortlisted for her work in the Barclays L’Atelier Competition Top 100 in 2016.

“I use the language of mapping as a means to travel through real and imagined worlds. My intention is to create internal landscapes, reflecting on thoughts, memories and identity with references to several sites in Cape Town, to reflect upon personal and historical understandings inscribed by the landscape of our country. I then visit these sites and take close-up photographs with a macro lens of roots, cracks and texture on walls or rocks. Translating these photographs into maps; converting these insignificant moments into enlarged environments to engage with an intimate view of the landscape. The idea is to make the ‘invisible’, ‘visible’ and to draw attention to the details of places that people do not usually recognize. Thus the works are a poetic, subtle, individualized method in understanding specific areas that have significance to me.”