Isa Johannsen - Painter and Art Director

For more than 20 years, Isa Johannsen has worked as a graphic designer and art director, specializing in editorial design – including for publishers such as Gruner + Jahr, Bauer, and Springer.

Painting, for her, is a natural, freer continuation of her graphic work, where the interplay of geometric structures and intuitive gestures runs throughout her practice.

At the core lies the tension between strict structure and spontaneous, intuitive mark-making. She often begins with very thin, colored papers, layered onto the canvas in several overlapping sheets. They intersect, partially reveal one another, and form planes – creating an initial grid, a kind of framework that she then expands with color, shape, and line.

She works with acrylics, chalk, markers, and ballpoint pens – with anything that allows for expression. Her color palette is deliberately restrained: certain shades such as light blue, pale yellow, pink, or grey appear repeatedly, punctuated by vibrant orange or strong pink to set deliberate accents and heighten contrasts.

She paints over, glues, scratches, wipes, allowing layers to show through or disappear. The accidental and the fragmentary are integral to her process – as is the breaking open of certainties.

Geometry provides stability, yet the true allure lies for her in the in-between: in what shimmers through, in what remains, in what fades and emerges anew.

The artist lives with her family in Hamburg/Ottensen, her studio is located in Hamburg/St. Pauli.