Sue Johnson, professor of art at St. Mary's College, is presenting her second solo exhibition at gallery neptune & brown in Washington, D.C., titled “Blueprint for Happiness.” The show runs from May 16 through June 20, with an opening reception on May 16. Johnson debuts a new series, “My Teenage Years,” which builds on her earlier “Symmetrical Bodies” work and examines the pressures on women to conform to ideals of happiness and perfection in body image and domestic spaces, drawing on 1960s-70s material and commercial culture.
This exhibition matters because it highlights how a regional academic artist continues to develop a conceptually rigorous practice that engages feminist critique through visual culture. Johnson’s work has been collected by major institutions like the Muscarelle Museum of Art, The Menil Collection, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, underscoring the significance of her contribution to contemporary art discourse beyond the local gallery scene.