At a time when hierarchies and inequality are becoming increasingly pronounced, Cara Johnson explores the nature of love, of tending, as an act of equalisation.

In 2024, Johnson and her partner Matt took ownership of a native plant nursery where they live, on Gadubanud country, growing local plants for revegetation and conservation. They devote their time to seed collection and plant growing, while in the midst of an ongoing drought, as well as maintaining other roles and raising their small daughter.

This new body of work is born of and reflects this period - a time of great productivity and accomplishment, but also of pressure and responsibility. The demands on Johnson's attention are reflected in the exhibition's title: I love you all the same. She describes "processes that lend themselves to a fragmented life, things that can be picked up and put down", and this new work reveals an ongoing exploration of what life looks like as one holistic practice; when art, work, family and place are indivisible, all honoured as inextricably linked parts.

As well, the exhibition title touches on Cara's negotiation with the question of how to value invasive species, how to hold the tenderness she feels for life, regardless of whether it 'belongs'. Cara approaches this through intensively laborious processes, and by her use of materials that connect directly to land and our use/misuse of it. From agriculture: baling twine, silage netting, iron and fence posts. Weed species such as birch and willow. Old rakes and pegs. Feathers from beloved chickens. Johnson approaches each material with an equalising reverence, honouring each through her attention and labour. The resulting works are lyrical evocations of place and the passing of time, and most particularly, of our relationship to both.



I love you all the same - catalogue