Amanei Johnson's Murals Add Color and Fun To Ordinary Spaces
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Amanei Johnson poses in front of her mural she designed and painted during her artist residency at The Arts & Science Center. THe mural is on a doorway at ASC’s ART WORKS on Main, next to ASC’s home facility,
Recent UAPB Graduate Finishes Artist Residency at ASC
Amanei Johnson works on a mural on a doorway at ART WORKS on Main on August 4, 2022.
As she finished up her summer artist residency at The Arts & Science Center, Amanei Johnson put the final touches on a mural on a doorway on the south side of the ART WORKS on Main building.
The design, which covers the entire door and surrounding doorway, features bold, colorful patterns with simplified shapes of instruments.
Using ASC’s mission statement (“The Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas serves as a cultural crossroad: engaging, educating, and entertaining through the arts and sciences.”) as a jumping-off point, Johnson honed in music as the theme. She began with a guitar and then incorporated more instruments, “So I was using saxophones or the mandoline or a clarinet to give it some more depth rather than just guitars. And then I added some musical notes and some patterns,” she explained.
She is painting a small rectangular section of the wall nearby with a similar design as well.
Johnson also created the design for the mural on the storage unit next to ASC’s home building. That mural was a collaboration between ASC and UAPB, with multiple students and Assistant Professor of Art Matthew Fields painting the unit this spring. The mural – which covers all three visible sides of the metal unit – took a large, beige, utilitarian object and turned it into a work of art.
The murals at ASC were her first. “I’m excited because I really hope I continue to work on murals,” she said. “I hope this is the first, not the last.”
A mural covers a storage Unit at ASC. Amanei Johnson came up with the concept for the overall design, which was painted by UAPB students and faculty in spring 2022.
A Chicago native, Johnson graduated in May 2022 from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff with a Bachelor of Arts degree in visual arts. During her senior year, she interned at ASC in its Collections department. Her artwork was also part of a UAPB senior show that ASC hosted in the Loft Gallery of The ARTSpace on Main in fall 2021.
Among the scholarships and awards she received were an Alumni Endowment Scholarship and an About Love Scholarship, funded in part by music superstar Beyoncé. Johnson also participated in the Fisk University Museum Leadership Program in 2021.
She heads north in mid-August to begin graduate studies at Alfred University in Alfred, New York. There she will pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting. Her studies will include two semesters in Germany.
Check out more of Johnson’s art on her website and follow her on Instagram.
