Sandra Johnston's current research in the Joseph Beuys Archive explores the many ways in which Beuys worked with the concept of energy flows - visible in his actions, objects, drawings and language. A central theme here is Beuys' repeated use of the term 'battery' for his works, for example in Battery Flat-High (1963). This term refers to ideas of charge, current and transmission. Johnston interprets these ideas with a focus on the hidden, catalytic qualities of everyday objects and materials. The flow of energy is particularly visible in Beuys' drawings and scores: lines of movement around figures suggest processes of emanation and transformation. These motifs appear both in his visionary, personal works and in the later blackboard artefacts from lectures, where they condense into a language of thought in diagrams and action schemes. In her performance Bone-Battery//Flat-High, Johnston brings these concepts into a physical form where her actions make an inner, somatic space visible through gestures of marking, repeating, cancelling and adapting, she allows energy processes to be experienced in space.
about the artist(s)
Dr Sandra Johnston has been active internationally since 1992 as an artist, researcher and educator working predominantly through performance art, video installations, drawing and writing. Johnston has held several teaching and research posts since 2002 and she currently lectures at Belfast School of Art. Her practice often involves fusing fragments of historical material into intricate relationships with performed gestures, enabling an opening out of personal narratives around trauma, memory, and implication. In 2020 Johnston was awarded the O'Malley Visual Arts Award by The Irish American Cultural Institute, and her work is represented in the Irish Arts Council, Northern Irish Arts Council and Irish Museum of Modern Art public collections.
