Biography

Jamila Johnson is an educator and artist from eastern Iowa. She graduated from Iowa State University with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts with a specialization in Integrated Studio Arts and is now pursuing her Master of Art Administration and Policy degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work presents the everyday lives of Black Americans, particularly children, with a dose of magic. She works primarily with watercolor and pen illustration, and relief printmaking. By juxtaposing sublime landscapes and mystical elements with the mundane reality of everyday life, Jamila’s art takes on a sense of familiarity among the surreal. Her work evokes longing for an imaginary place and farsickness for the chimerical.