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JJ Johnson

Staff details

JJ Johnson

Position

Lecturer in Fine Art (Studio Practice)

Department

Art

Email

j.johnson (@gold.ac.uk)

Dr JJ Pálka Johnson works with drawing, painting, performance and video.

JJ Pálka Johnson lives and works in East London. JJ has been commissioned by Drawing Room and Barbican Public Spaces and has presented work in the UK at: Modern Art Oxford; ICA; Jerwood; Almanac Projects; Bonington Gallery; New Contemporaries; and internationally at: TULCA Galway; Queer Archive Festival Athens; CAC + Rupert, Vilnius; CCI Fabrika, Moscow; Place Des Arts, Montreal; Devos Museum, Michigan. Their debut feature DIY documentary what's safe, what's gross, what's selfish and what's stupid premiered at BFI Flare in 2024. JJ recently completed a DPhil at Ruskin, University of Oxford, and their play Happy Baby will be published by Montez Press in 2026.

Academic qualifications

  • DPhil Art Practice Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford 2025
  • MFA Fine Art Goldsmiths University of London 2014
  • BA Fine Art Nottingham Trent University 2007

Research interests

JJ has been showing films, paintings, and performances for over 10 years, exploring subjects ranging from friendship in expat communities in New Delhi, to polyamory navigated via dating apps, to genderfluid bio-reproduction, queer family-making, and the politics of assisted reproduction.

Featured publications

2020: Love
Drawing Room Annotations II

2018: More Than Two: Omnibus
Barbican Commission

2018: More Than Two: Episode 3
Almanac Projects

2024: what’s safe, what’s gross, what’s selfish and what’s stupid
A glimpse of several slices of the London queer community as they talk about what it means to create a family.

Grants and awards

Publications and research outputs

Film/Video

Performance

  • MORE THAN TWO: 10 JARS Johnson, Jasmine . 2018. MORE THAN TWO: 10 JARS. In: "More Than Two: Omnibus", Barbican Centre, United Kingdom.

Show/Exhibition

  • Love Johnson, Jasmine . 2020. Love. In: "Love", Drawing Room, London, United Kingdom, 9 March - 31 August 2020.

Research projects

Media engagements

Teaching

2022 - current Goldsmiths University of London / BA Fine Art, 0.5 permanent lecturer
2016 - 2022 Nottingham Trent University / BA Fine Art, visiting lecturer
2016 - 2018 MSA University / Cairo / Moderator with University of Bedfordshire
2018 - 2019 / Reading University / BA Fine Art, visiting lecturer