Image: Margaret Johnson, Icelandic Poppy (detail), Oil on Wood Panel, 36 in. x 36 in., 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.
Margaret Johnson: Emergence
March 9 – July 26, 2026 @Frasier
Frasier Retirement Community
The Canyons Center Art Gallery
350 Ponca Place, Boulder, CO 80303
Open to the public during regular hours, 9am - 5pm
Opening Reception
Thursday, March 19, 2026
4-5:30pm @ Frasier
4:30pm Artist/Curator Q&A
Free & open to the public
Emergence traces visual resonance between human relationships and the natural world. Through a selection of Margaret Johnson’s botanical works, abstract paintings, and monotype prints, the exhibition reveals shared systems of growth, perception, and becoming. Her botanical works, enlarged to a macro scale, transform flowers into immersive visual fields, where orientation dissolves and complexity mirrors the rhythms of life itself. In her abstract Intersection series, repetition and modular structures suspend linear time, refusing hierarchy or singular focus, while shifting matrices of color, density, and rhythm allow order to emerge as a living system. Seen together for the first time, Johnson’s botanical and abstract works operate as parallel strategies for moving beyond sequential experience—one through outward organic complexity, the other through inward reflection and structure. Across both bodies of work, perception and meaning unfold in a constant state of emergence.
Guest curated by Christina Rudosky
About the artist:
Margaret Galvin Johnson is a Colorado-based multidisciplinary artist whose work is rooted in a lifelong curiosity about color, process, and the natural world. Her artistic journey began in early pottery classes and deepened during her teenage years with photography, eventually evolving into a dynamic practice that spans mixed media and abstract painting, oil painting, botanical illustration, monotype printmaking, and plein-air work.
Margaret’s art reflects a deep connection to nature, shaped by more than a decade of macro flower photography and five years of formal study in botanical illustration at the Denver Botanic Gardens School of Art and Illustration. This close observation of the natural world continues to inform her work, whether representational or abstract, lending it a sense of structure, rhythm, and emotional resonance.
In recent years, Margaret has focused on expanding her printmaking practice, integrating block printing and monotype techniques into her broader visual language. Her abstract work returns through all her disciplines, embracing spontaneity, intuition, and bold use of color.
Margaret has exhibited widely in solo, juried, and group exhibitions throughout Colorado and her work is held in public and private collections across the United States and Canada.
About the curator:
Christina Rudosky, Guest Curator is a curator, scholar, and writer based in Boulder, Colorado. She holds a Ph.D. in French Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the Sorbonne (Paris-IV). Her work bridges academic research and curatorial practice with a focus on modernist and contemporary art, material culture, and the history of collecting.
Her expertise in Surrealism and object poetics has shaped exhibitions and archival projects with institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, Giacometti Foundation, Kandinsky Library, and Henri Martin Museum. She has taught at the University of Colorado Boulder, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke University. Her writing has appeared in Cambridge Critical Concepts and Criticism, and she continues to explore how the poetic, political, and perceptual dimensions of objects shape aesthetic experience.
Opening Reception
Thursday, 3/19 for a 4-5:30pm with an artist/curator conversation at 4:30Free & open to the public
BMoCA at Frasier is a collaboration between Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and Frasier Retirement Community. Curated by BMoCA, this series of exhibitions in The Canyons Gallery is an extension of the museum’s exhibition schedule.