Creative Conversations/digital: David Johnson with Philip Matthews

Wednesday, June 3 | 12PM 

Join a conversation with photographer David Johnson and poet Philip Matthews, whose collaborative project Wig Heavier Than a Boot is featured in the FotoFest exhibition Ten by Ten.

Following their individual presentations, the artists will join FotoFest Executive Director, Steven Evans, for a conversation about their work together, where Matthews performs for Johnson’s camera in their drag persona Petal against pastoral and domestic backgrounds. As the images were made, Matthews wrote poetic responses that expanded the artists interest in the relationships between subject and performer, place and memory, and the construction of narrative and identity.

About the guests
David Johnson is an artist, educator, and curator based in Iowa City, IA. He received an MFA in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis, MO in 2007 and earned his BFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in Photography from Texas Christian University, Fort Worth. In 2011, David was awarded the Great Rivers Visual Arts Award from the Gateway Foundation. This biennial award culminated with his 2012 exhibition institutional etiquette and strange overtones at the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis, MO. Johnson’s Monograph Wig Heavier Than A Boot, was published in 2019 by Kris Graves Projects.

His photographs have been exhibited internationally, including the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis; Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, St. Louis; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, IN; National Building Museum in Washington D.C. and Rathaus in Stuttgart, Germany. His work can be found in the collection at The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. Aint—Bad, Don’t Take Pictures, the Humble Arts Foundation, Lenscratch, PHOTO–EMPHASIS and Fraction Magazine have featured his work. Johnson has curated exhibitions for Center of Creative Arts, St. Louis, MO; Paul Artspace, Florissant, MO; and the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St Louis. Currently, Johnson is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography at The University of Iowa.

Philip Matthews is a poet from eastern North Carolina and the author of Witch (Farmington: Alice James Books, 2020) and Wig Heavier Than A Boot, (Brooklyn: Kris Graves Projects, 2019). Individual poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Tusculum Review, Denver Quarterly, Connotation Press, Sonora Review, and elsewhere. Anchored by site-specific meditation and performance, his practice investigates spiritual, queer power, eco-consciousness, and questions of home. He is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, RI; Hemera Foundation, Boulder, CO; and Wormfarm Institute, Reedsburg, WI. He has lectured at Washington University in St. Louis, MO and the Kansas City Art Institute, MO and from 2013–16, he organized public programs at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, emphasizing cross-disciplinary collaboration, artist-driven thinking, and community-directed action. He received his MFA in Writing from Washington University in St. Louis and BA in English from Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.