Born in Colombes (France) in 1991, Johanna Mirabel lives and works in Paris (France).
Johanna Mirabel's paintings depict figures occupying domestic spaces that often open onto a dreamlike exterior. The interiors in which the figures evolve call on the artist's memories, from Guyanese houses to New York brownstones from the Harlem Renaissance. Childhood memories and recent experiences enter in dialogue at the heart of the pictorial surface, creating syncretic universes. Her paintings explore the permeability of interior and exterior notions. Lush vegetation enters the home to inhabit these enclosed, familiar spaces. The realistic treatment of bodies and faces contrasts with the sketched elements of décor, metaphors for evanescent and changing memories.
The porosity between the figure and its environment is reinforced by the use of color: the skin tones blend seamlessly into the shades of the walls and floors, in cameos of ochres, browns and reds. For the artist, these colors are a point of anchorage or filiation with French Guiana, from Creole red earths to citations of Tembe art, a color palette that gains further dynamism in communion with the cerulean blues and cadmium yellows that the artist draws from Helen Frankenthaler's paintings.
In 2023, Johanna Mirabel benefited from a residency at the Fondation H, which organized a solo exhibition of her work. The same year, the artist took part in Immortelle at MO.CO (Montpellier, France), an exhibition designed to offer a panorama of young French figurative painting. She participates to a number of group shows, notably at the French Institute in Madrid (Spain), Hôtel de Craon, (La Rochelle, France), Villa Belleville (Paris, France), Manifesta (Lyon, France), and La Conciergerie, (Paris, France).
Johanna Mirabel's works have joined renowned collections including the Fondation H (Antananarivo, Madagascar) and the Museum of African Art (Marrakech, Morocco), the Weissmann Family Collection (New York, USA), the Green Family Art Foundation (Dallas, USA), the X Museum (Beijing, China), and the Underdog Collection (Italy).