Cara Johnson’s craft-based practice interrogates tensions and narratives connected to the ways land is treated and used through material, intention and invested labour. Her practice is intertwined with her rural location in which she works in isolation, surrounded by bushland and sheep paddocks. Utilising agricultural refuse, weed plant species and what remains from regeneration projects, her work engages primarily with the jewellery vernacular to rework these materials while drawing upon tensions between people and plants, and ideas around control.

In 2016 she completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (First Class Hons.) at RMIT University and was a sessional lecturer in RMIT School of Art. Recent museum solo exhibitions include Overlay at Ararat Gallery TAMA (2023), Overlay at the Santos Museum of Economic Botany in Adelaide (2022), and Understory at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (2019). Cara also exhibits widely in group shows, notably Paper Art at CODA Museum in the Netherlands, Elegy at Gallery Funaki and had work represented in Schmuck 2022 and Schmuck 2023 in Munich.

Cara’s works are held in various private and public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria. Her first solo exhibition at Funaki was Semblance of Repair (2022).