Illustrator & maker of strange little worlds
Welcome to the cabinet • Look closer • Follow the thread • Turn the page • Find something unexpected • Stay curious •
Welcome to the cabinet • Look closer • Follow the thread • Turn the page • Find something unexpected • Stay curious •
AboutI'm beginning to bring the pieces together.
I've been making things in lots of different ways,drawing, embroidering, making zines, playing with found imagery, designing things and creating spaces for people to make together.
I'm now beginning to explore what happens when these different threads become a creative practice.
I'm interested in strange and familiar things, hidden stories, handmade worlds and the small details that make you look twice.
The Cabinet brings together work I've made across illustration, embroidery, zines and community projects.
These works weren't originally created as one body of practice, but together they reveal recurring interests in storytelling, curiosity, transformation and connection.
I'm interested in the connections between them and in discovering where those threads might lead next.
The Cabinet
Strange & Wonderful
Reimagining the familiar and finding wonder in the unexpected
Hidden Stories
A collection about the stories we carry, hide and gradually reveal.
Handmade Narratives
Small worlds, handmade stories, discovered one page at a time.
Looking forwardI'm beginning to explore how the different parts of my making might come together through illustration, embroidery, printmaking, zines, found imagery and other tactile forms.
I'm drawn to the space between the familiar and the strange, where something playful can hold a darker or more personal story, and where small details reveal something unexpected.
A residency would give me the time and space to follow these ideas more deeply, experiment without needing to know the outcome, and discover what this emerging practice might become.
The Workbench
This is where ideas are tested, altered, abandoned, picked up again and sometimes turned into something unexpected.
Sketches, experiments, materials, half-finished things and works in progress sit alongside the finished pieces.
Making with Others
Through Quiet Chaos Club, I've been exploring what happens when making becomes a way of bringing people together, creating space for hobbies, conversation, curiosity, connection and community
This work has allowed me to move between artist, designer, organiser and facilitator, and has made me increasingly interested in creativity as something that can be experienced collectively rather than simply observed.
About
I'm Nic Johnston, a designer and emerging artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
I've spent much of my career working in design, research and human-centred practice. Alongside that work, I've continued making things simply because I wanted to see what would happen.
Drawing, embroidery, zines, storytelling, found imagery and community projects have gradually begun to feel less like separate interests and more like connected threads.
I'm now interested in giving those threads more room to develop and in finding out what kind of creative practice they might become.