Ella Johnston
Ella Johnston is a Wivenhoe-based artist working across painting, drawing and sculpture. She completed a Foundation in Art & Design at Chelsea College of Arts and a BA in Art History & Literature at the University of Essex, and is a member of the 2024/25 The Other MA (TOMA) alternative art school cohort and the Turps Banana Correspondence Course 2025/26. Alongside her studio practice she is co-founder and Creative Director of Dunlin Press, an independent publishing and art project established in 2015, and has worked as an illustrator for St Martin's Press, New York. A member of Colchester Art Society, she has exhibited widely, including the society's 80 Years show at the Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, group shows at The Minories, Colchester, and a solo show at the 2025 Harwich Festival.
Artist Statement
Rooted in drawing, my practice is an ongoing investigation into mark-making, gesture, and the calligraphic line; into the ways meaning is constructed, dissolved, or withheld through the act of inscription. My experience as a journalist and marketer has sharpened my interest in truth, myth-making, representation, and miscommunication. I imagine my paintings as spaces bearing the scars of human occupation; once inhabited by conversation and industry, now deserted and slowly reclaimed by elemental forces.