Today, from 10am to noon (PST) on Bachelard's Panty Drawer (Freeform Portland Radio) I'll be in conversation with artist, Jaleesa Johnston about her multimedia work and the strengths, conflicts, and awe of womanhood. As usual, I’ll be playing songs that rhyme with the theme. Songs about WOMEN by Sudan Archives, Yoko Ono, Valerie June, Betty Davis, Sampa The Great, Ludus, Ibeyi, and more.
Jaleesa Johnston is a mixed media artist currently working in Portland, OR. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work explores the ruptured and queer existence of the black female body as both subject and object through performance, video, photography, sculpture and collage. Working with her body as material, Jaleesa uses its malleability and symbolism to conjure new narratives that suggest blackness as a liminal site for personal and communal transformation. She is particularly concerned with articulating gestures of the body as a fragmented language that can be used to voice narratives of fugitivity, resistance and freedom.
Work by Jaleesa Johnston