Biography
Awarded the prestigious job of presidential hand embroidery in 2015, she is a national treasure under a Betsy Ross Legacy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Duwenavue Santé Johnson is an American BIPOC artist with ancestry from the north and south of the United States for the last 400 years. Equally divided race, religion, and culture while recognizing and coming to terms with manifest destiny, migratory freedoms, and misplacements. Her focus is creating a better world while studying the pathways that brought us all here by learning how to cohabitate better and listening more while changing the world through the practice of being oneself and sharing with others. Through a long art journey, she has become a full-time artist in many visual art disciplines. Her art is shown in the US and internationally through Tiger Strikes Asteroid (TSA) Philadelphia, also collaboratively working with after-school art programs and community centers under the San Francisco School of Needlework and Design (SFSNAD) are ways to provide a consistent connection with society.
She has participated in and curated numerous public presentations of art exhibitions like TSA(Philadelphia), Schau Fenster and The National Museum (Berlin), The Jones Institute, La Chapelle de Sainte Lucie (Marsanne, France), Shantinekitan (India), Art Span, 69 Belcher St, and Active Space, The Bahai Center (San Francisco), AHC ( Oakland). Numerous shows with Oxheart, Gowanus ( Brooklyn, NYC), and Squirrel Haus Arts (Saint Paul, MN).
Her hand embroidery has been featured in Paris, France, at Atelier Zardosi, at various textile shows with the Royal School of Needlework (England), and Han Sang Soo (Seoul, South Korea). Teaching and Curating textile shows sponsored by IKEA- Yalla Trappan (Malmo, Sweden) along with many volunteer projects, Underwater Healer with Erena Shimoda, cancer awareness, print media throughout the world, a tv show (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), underwater healer art exhibition (Tokyo, Japan) lectures, art show (Phoenix, Arizona, and Apple (Boston, San Francisco).
Her latest success was being chosen out of 800 entries to show at the Patterson-Appleton Arts Center February-May 2023, Materials Hard and Soft.