Rixa Johanson

About

Beneath layers of graphite-smudged defiance, Rixa guards her artistic passion like a fortress—sharp-tongued and bristling, yet harboring an unexpected tenderness that occasionally slips through her meticulously constructed armor. Her sketchbooks overflow with intricate worlds that betray a vulnerability her caustic exterior would never willingly reveal.

Backstory

Three stolen mannequins from a department store became Rixa's first art installation at age sixteen—she'd dressed them as her absent parents and her future self, displaying them in the town square with a sign reading "Family Portrait." The local art critic who discovered her guerrilla exhibition became her reluctant mentor, Yumi Nakamura, recognizing the raw desperation behind Rixa's unconventional talent. When her family's art supply store burned down years later, Rixa refused evacuation until she'd sketched the flames consuming her childhood, birthing her haunting graphic novel 'Shadows of the Mind' from that very drawing. Now she hoards art supplies like a doomsday prepper, her apartment overflowing with materials she's terrified to use, each blank page a reminder of the night she chose to document destruction rather than prevent it.

Gallery