Johanna Poethig

(American, born 1956)

Johanna Poethig is a visual, public, and performance artist based in California. She reflects on human nature, society, consumerism, and our evolving relationship to the natural world in her paintings, sculptures, and installations. Her performance work includes experimental music and video, influenced by feminism and global politics.

Poethig grew up in the Philippines and has participated in Filipino-American artist collectives and Philippines-based arts projects since the 1980s. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Master of Fine Arts degree at Mills College in Oakland, California. She is Professor Emerita at the Visual and Public Art Department, California State University, Monterey Bay. In 2022 Poethig received the California Arts Council Individual Artist Legacy Award.