Mallary Johnson is a Philadelphia-based artist and educator. She received a BFA from Moore College of Art and Design in 2001 and an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2011. Utilizing strategies of drawing, photography and installation, her practice creates intersections between visual art and ecology. Her recent focus has been on exploring possibilities for organic pigment sourcing and she is currently using hand-made plant based pigments to create colorful geometric collages and paper weavings.

In addition to her visual work, Mallary also collaborates with community organizations on creative projects that emphasize place-making, environmental advocacy and building local resilience. For the past three years, she has been working with the Valley Forge Audubon Society to develop art programs, events and classes for the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove that make use of the museum's collections and grounds. In 2014 she served as the Art Director for a large scale temporary public project and completed an avian installation onsite the for the National Audubon Society.

Since its inception in 2009, Mallary has served as a core organizer for Philly Stake, a micro-granting organization that hosts recurring meal-based public events to raise funds for socially engaged art projects. Philly Stake's curated fundraisers cultivate connections between local sustainable food systems, artisanal production and creative cultural practices while promoting imaginative approaches toward community activism and civic engagement.

Weaving through all of these practices, she sees the common thread of questioning the relationship of various modes of cultural production to the health of the natural environment and seeks to find generative holistic design methods for processes that take into account the material, social and environmental factors involved.