Biography

Lise Johansson (b.1985) is a visual artist and photographer based in Copenhagen.

Johansson studied portrait- and commercial photography from 2012-2016 at Media College Viborg and analogue and fine art photography in 2010 at Vera, School of Art and Design, Copenhagen. As a part of her education she did a four years apprenticeship at the National Museum of Denmark in the Department of Conservation and Restoration. Alongside her artistic practice she is currently studying Art History at Copenhagen University.

Between college and photography school Johansson lived in Paris for several years. She also traveled the world extensively as part of her photographic journey. During her travels she spent time in Russia, Japan, Mongolia and China. Her time abroad has influenced her work in many aspects. The events that happened during this period in her life have not only shaped her as a person but bring out the personal character in her images.

The starting point for Johansson’s artistic practice is to create a sense of a distorted reality, where the inspiration for this comes from the borderland that exists between the conscious and the unconscious. ‘The unseen’ takes place in the familiar, and locates itself in the field that blurs the line between reality and fantasy.

Johansson works around the themes of identity and belonging. The images often take departure from physical miniatures of landscapes and architectural spaces, combined with textures and objects photographed to use as building blocks in post processing.

Johansson is interested in people’s shared or individual feelings for the spaces or places they inhabit. Why do we feel that we belong in some places and not in others? Place and identity are closely bound together and people often strongly identify with the places they live in. Their environments shape who they are, and the bonds between person and place can influence culture, politics and social life.

Her work has been exhibited worldwide in i.a. London, Paris, Copenhagen and New York and many more. In 2017 she received two awards at the acclaimed Sony World Photography Awards and most recently she won the title ‘Photographer of the Year 2020’ in the International Color Awards and 1st Place in Int’l Photography Awards 2021 in the category Fine Art / Other.