Johanna Picton

My practice explores the intersection of art and place-based ecologies through inquiry into locality, geology, and material expression. I'm interested in how landscapes hold traces of time and environmental change, and how we form deep emotional attachments to our surroundings. This shapes my multi-disciplinary practice across installation, print, painting, performance, and sound.

As an established landscape architect, I've shaped spaces throughout Australia and the US, integrating site narratives and material exploration into designs. My experience with diverse landscapes has honed my ability to translate research into built form. I apply this within my artistic practice, pushing boundaries between art, landscape, and the unnoticed world.

My current work investigates ecological relationships and temporal traces within urban environments. Through collection, transformation, and deliberate breakdown, I've created an immersive installation that examines topophilic attachment to place. The work reveals Merri-bek's unnoticed substrate—layered, deteriorating fragments in an unstable medium, mirroring the landscape's ongoing material transformation.