Meet Our Featured Artist!

"Pose for the Camera" by R. Johnson, Framed Print 11x14 $29.95 $22.95

Roberta "Bobi" Johnson

Born in Mesa, Arizona, Roberta "Bobi" Johnson was a towhead who grew up watching her mother paint and create at every opportunity.

She began her art career at the age of nine, making macramé plant and wall hanging gifts for every family member, whether they wanted one or not!

By the time she was fifteen, the family had moved north of Houston, Texas, and she began working in a local arts and crafts shop teaching macramé classes and creating customized pieces for shop patrons.

She also dabbled a little with oil panting during that time under her mother's tutelage.

Now in Illinois and married to her husband Ted, she has three children.

After twenty-five years of working for various corporations in sales and marketing positions, she studied drawing at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and picked up the brush again in 2002. After several months of trial and error, she took a painting class at the local art league.

Since then, she has worked to improve her sense of color, balance and brush technique, and is just beginning to emerge into the art world with her creations. The piece displayed above, entitled "Pose for the Camera" was recently published in New Art International, an internationally published artbook that showcases new and emerging artists.  Prints are available through this website only.

Her paintings, although often of horses or other equines, are truly pieces of social commentary with broad appeal and understanding.

Click here to see some of the other work by this artist!

Artist Statement

"I prefer to use equine art to help viewers see the social vagaries and inequities of our society. Using animals tends to help viewers stand back from themselves a bit, perhaps see themselves in a different way, and consider for a moment how others may be seeing or feeling about them. I try to impart my own curiosity about how we interact in society to others, to get them to ask questions about the image long after they walk past my painting.

I paint for my own inner peace, for the love of creativity, and for joy; but I hope my images have an impact on society, to make others, even if only momentarily, more gracious and merciful to one another. "