Introduction

Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck has been drawing in sketchbooks for as long as she can remember, in the manner of a diary to which she confides her everyday life. A daily practice that mirrors the tender care she gives to her garden, a vibrant place that plays an essential role in her life and artistic practice.

In these sketchbooks, shapes and colours intermingle in a delicate and joyful harmony. It’s her intimate world that Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck reveals in her drawings, many of which are created en plein-air in just a few minutes. The simplicity of grey pencil strokes meets field flowers held in one hand and where familiar faces meet small animals, like Lemon, the canary with whom she lives.

To delve into ten years of notebooks, kept from 2014 to 2024, is to encounter the abundant and multifaceted work of an artist who invites us to observe the ordinary with an insatiable appetite.

An in-depth conversation between Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck and Cécile Poimbœuf-Koizumi completes the selection of drawings.

Biography

Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck (b.1990, Strasbourg, France) is a painter and interdisciplinary artist working across rural Oxfordshire (UK) and rural Alsace (France).

Her practice composed of painting, drawing, installation, sculpture, film, photography and writing often conceals ecological messages, rendered in soft and delicate methods. In several of the artist’s projects interaction with the environment and others plays a central role.

Solo exhibitions include Dreaming about Tomorrow at Nidi Gallery. Recent group exhibitions include One Foot in The Sky at Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer and Edge Effects at Whitechapel Gallery.

In 2014, Johanna founded the positive and collaborative cultural project Poetic Pastel.
In 2018, the artist cofounded the publication series Journal du Thé – Contemporary Tea Culture.
In 2021, Johanna founded The Gardening Drawing Club.

Specifications

Drawings: Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck
Concept, editing and sequencing: Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi
Design: Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi, in collaboration with Perrine Serre
232 pages
16,5 x 21 cm
French / English / Japanese
Publication date: September 2024
ISBN: 979-10-96383-44-3