I am a South African visual artist based rurally in Sinixt Territory, British Columbia, Canada.
I was born in Kenya and grew up in South Africa as the apartheid era was crumbling and society was in radical transformation. My childhood was a curious dialogue between art and dance classes and the revolution.
I studied Fine Art at Michaelis Art School, the University of Cape Town.
After art school, I left South Africa on a cargo ship, working my passage to Europe where I was drawn to the edges and underbellies of European society. I became affiliated with artists, punks, environmentalists, anti fascists and renegades in my continued search for perspective on my identity of being a seventh generation South African with European ancestry. Traveling Europe, I made and sold art, wrote stories, performed on the streets and painted murals.
I am an adventurer, seeker, land defender, freight hopper, hitch hiker, cargo ship traveler.
I am a reverent animist ceremonialist nemopholist yogini- exploring cartographer of liminality and transformation. Perpetual beginner. Friend.
I live close to the land, grow food and flowers, and harvest medicines in the mountains. I like swimming in wild rivers and lakes and walking in the woods with my wolf dogs. My creative process is connected to a healthy relationship with land, the supernatural and the ancestors. This concern with ecological impact has led me often to work with found and natural objects and antique paper.
My work is informed by my research in cosmology, myth, and geometry and an interest in architecture and history. It integrates the study of ancient yogic and tantric texts and a devotional meditation practice. Medicine people travel through Sinixt territory from all over the Americas, bringing their ceremonial ways. I have been welcomed into many diverse and interesting ritual spaces, experiences that continue to inform my creative practice.
My work is concerned with ideas of liminality, consciousness, and transformation. It explores my perception of death and the afterlife, and the hypnagogic liminal space between states. I am interested in the continual interaction between the dynamics of contraction and expansion, the elasticity of time and space and the synesthetic correspondence between sound, form, and colour.
My multidisciplinary practice includes painting, drawing, collage, papercutting, assemblage, installation and printmaking. I also write and create public and land-based works.
My work takes me around the world, and sometimes beyond the borders of my own body. I have exhibited in international solo and group exhibitions and biennales. While most of my work is produced in my studio on my farm, I also create site-specific installations, including Afterlife of a House, Reincarnation of a Shrine, Sanctum — A Room Inside a Room (Nakanojo Biennale, Japan), and Story Keepers (Land Art Mongolia Biennale). I have collaborated with theatre makers, choreographers, digital artists, and performers. Notably, I have worked with acclaimed South African theatre director Brett Bailey on internationally touring productions including Sanctuary, Samson, and FaustX, contributing to the scenography, object making and visual languages of these theatre-installation works.
Education:
1991 Bachelor of Fine Arts (honours), University of Cape Town, South Africa
2016 Lithography Mentorship, Malaspina Printmakers, Vancouver, Canada
Exhibitions:
2025 Sanctum. A room inside a room, Nakanojo Biennale, Japan
2025 FaustX, Kunstfest, Weimar, Germany
2025 FaustX, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg
2025 FaustX, Nanterre, Paris, France
2025 FaustX, Oder, Frankfurt, Germany
2025 FaustX, Mask, object and scenography collaboration for theatre, director: Brett Bailey, South Africa
2024 Bitola International Art Triennial, Tianyi Pavilion Museum, Ningbo, China/ Bitola, North Macedonia
2024 Nakanojo Art Fair, Japan
2024 Samson, Teatros del Canal, Madrid, Spain
2023 Reincarnation of a Shrine, Nakanojo Biennale, Japan
2023 Samson, Nanterre, Paris, France
2023 Samson, International Theatre Festival of Kerala, India
2023 Samson, Africologne Festival, Germany
2023 Mantra Amplifier, Ras Al Khaimah Fine Arts Festival, United Arab Emirates
2022 Graphica Creativa Print Triennale, Finland
2022 International Paper Biennale, Belgium
2021 Love Thy Neighbour, Asia Triennial Manchester 21, United Kingdom
2021 Wisdom Engines, London Biennale, United Kingdom
2021 Eclipse, Anima Mundi, Primopiano Gallery, Lecce, Italy
2021 Distance, Lacuna Festivals, Spain
2021 Samson, GREC, Festival de Barcelona, Spain
2021 Samson, Festival d’Avignon, France
2021 Istanbul International Art Fair, Turkey
2020 Wisdom Engines and Evolutes, Mediations Biennale Polska, Poland
2020 Samson, Festival d’Avignon, France
2019 Afterlife of a House, Nakanajo Biennale, Japan
2019 This is a Photograph of Me, Halka Art Project, Istanbul, Turkey
2019 Conversation with my Dead Self, Arts Assembly, Vancouver, Canada
2019 Samson, performance/installation, design collaboration with Brett Bailey, Wordfees, Stellenbosch, SA.
2018 Story Keepers, Mongolia Land Art Biennale, National Modern Art Gallery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
2018 DAS, Amsterdam University of the Artes, Netherlands
2018 The Seventh Hill, 4Bid Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2017 Carnival Corporation Cruise Line (Mediterranean, Caribbean, North Europe) via Artlink, Tel Aviv, Israel
2017 Sanctuary, performance/installation, collaboration with Brett Bailey, Athens, Greece
2017 Beacons, Hangar Centro de Investigacao Artistica, Lisbon, Portugal
2017 Edge of the Light, Touchstones Gallery, Nelson, BC, Canada
2016 Building a Better World: Kootenay Traditions, Kootenay Gallery, Castlegar, BC, Canada
2014 The Imaginarium, Oxygen Art Gallery, Nelson, BC, Canada
2014 Transforms and Anatomical Thought Maps, 4bid Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland
2013 Riverspines, The Langham, Kaslo, BC, Canada
2013 Riverspines, Grand Forks Art Gallery, Grand Forks, BC, Canada
2012 Supported installation of Exhibit B by Brett Bailey for Berlin Festspiele, Berlin, Germany
2012 Inner and Outer Landscapes, Kootenay Art Gallery, Nelson, BC, Canada
2012 Forest for the Trees, Touchstones Gallery, Nelson, BC, Canada
2011 Sense of Direction, Oxygen Art Gallery, Nelson, BC, Canada
2009 Reflections on Water, Touchstones Gallery, Nelson, BC, Canada
2008 Lines in Blood and Milk, Touchstones Gallery, Nelson, BC, Canada
Residencies:
2025 Nakanojo Biennale, Japan
2023 Nakanojo Biennale, Japan
2019 Nakanojo Biennale, Japan
2018 Land Art Mongolia Biennale, Murun, Mongolia
2017 Halka Art Project, Istanbul, Turkey
2017 Hangar Centro de Investigacao Artistica, Lisbon, Portugal
2014 0T301, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2011 Oxygen Art Gallery, Nelson, BC, Canada
2008 Infecting the City, Cape Town, South Africa
Grants and Awards:
2023 Project Travel Grant, Canada Council Council for the Arts
2021 Winner, global Music Theatre NOW! Competition
2020-22 Research and Creation Project grant, Canada Council for the Arts
2020 Samson, Best theatre production, Kyknet Fiesta, South Africa’s national theatre awards
2019 Project Travel Grant, Canada Council for the Arts
2015 Slocan Valley Arts Council, Community Program Grant, Slocan Valley, BC, Canada
2013/14 CKCA Major Project Funding, Nelson, BC, Canada
2014 CKCA Community Program Grant, Winlaw, BC, Canada
2012 CKCA Community Program Grant, Slocan, BC, Canada
2009/10 CKCA Major Project Grant Funding, Nelson, BC, Canada
Public and Corporate Collections:
Carnival Corporation Cruise Line, commissioned by Artlink, Tel Aviv, Israel
Berniece Paterson Private Collection, San Francisco
Sinixt Nation Logo & Numbered Prints, Canada (2005-2016)
FRAC Collection, Palm Springs, Calgary, Portland
Lona Fruit, Cape Town, South Africa
Selected Bibliography:
2023 Nakanojo Biennale, catalogue, Tetsuo Yamashige, director
2023 The World Social Initiative Forum
2023 Doctoral dissertation, Karen Ann Blom, Jönköping University, Sweden
2023 Wisdom Engines, Royal College of Psychiatrists, United Kingdom, Mutahira Moqueet
2023 Wisdom Engines, CAPITEL Magazine, Universidad Humanitas in Mexico.
2023 Wisdom Engines, Oldskull Magazine
2023 Wisdom Engines, Create Magazine
2023 Wisdom Engines, All She Makes Magazine
2023 Wisdom Engines, Al-Tiba9 Magazine
2022 Wisdom Engines: A Visual Meditation on Consciousness, the Elasticity of Time, and the Nature of Happiness, The Marginalian, Maria Popova
2022 Wisdom Engines: Symmetric Drawings on Antique Ledgeres Balance Energy and Consciousness, Colossal Magazine
2022 Wisdom Engines, Six Shot Magazine, Remy Dean
2022 The whimsical, symmetrical “Wisdom Engines” of Tanya Johnson, Medium, Clive Thompson
2019 Nakanojo Biennale, catalogue, Tetsuo Yamashige, director
2019 Land Art Mongolia 360, catalogue, Lewis Biggs, curator
2018 LAM360, Sohu, China, Jie Ahang
2018 Land Art Mongolia 360, Peanut Subway, China, Jie Zhang
2018 Land Art Mongolia 360, Hong Kong Hotline, Jie Zhang
2018 Land Art Mongolia 360, Artron China, Jie Zhang
2017 Tanya P Johnson: Edge of the Light, Galleries West, Maggie Shirley
2017 Edge of the Light, Exhibition catalogue, Arin Fay, curator, Touchstones Museum of Art and History
2017 Museum Origins Transmogrified, Astrid Heyerdahl, Executive Director, Touchstones Museum of Art and History
2012 Inner and Outer Landscapes, exhibition catalogue, Helen Sebelius, curator
2012 Riverspines, art catalogue essay, Deborah Thompson, curator
2012 Forest for the Trees, exhibition catalogue, Jessie Demers, curator
2012 Life Inspiring Art, Vurb, Megan Cole, editor
2009 Reflections on Water, exhibition catalogue, Deborah Thompson, curator
2009 Stories about Water as Told by Artists, R.W Sanford, Canadian Partnership Initiative. United Nations Water for Life, Director Western Watersheds and Climate Research Collaborative
2008 Infecting the City, Art Festival catalogue, Africa Centre
