Anna Elise Johnson: Earthworks – West Texas

On view at Cris Worley Fine Arts through August 14, Anna Elise Johnson’s “Earthworks – West Texas” is an exhibition of eight new works that were born from the artist’s circumstances surrounding the pandemic. Trading her Los Angeles studio for her parents’ Colorado home over the period of lockdown, the artist began creating a series of desert floor rubbings on paper on the way. Beginning in Marfa, Texas, Johnson recorded physical evidence of her stops by soaking canvas in plaster and matte medium, taking direct imprints of the ground before covering them in dirt and matter found on the ground at the site. Each named for the roadside stop from which they originated, the works were completed in the studio with layers of plaster, pastel, watercolor paints, and other mineral-based materials.