Johnna Geick is a self-taught freelance visual artist who interlaces female nudes with the natural environment by incorporating goddesses through feminine motifs such as fruits and flowers. The artist’s vibrancy is best portrayed through her painting starfishes on nipples, depicting the female body as a tree that gives life and flowers growing out of eyelashes.

Geick’s artworks are evocative, psychedelic depictions of nude goddesses convey their full bodily autonomy and liberation from contemporary pornographic imagery. The artist reclaims the female gaze through her depictions of mystical goddesses through heavy research of Greek mythology and feminine symbols. Her works critique the male gaze and censorship in the modern art realm as they are sometimes adulterated to pornography.

A self-described “nature baby” at heart and where she feels her most authentic self is when she is in tune with the environment around her. She recalls being surrounded by white pine forests on a peninsula and a chain of lakes she would visit during camping trips. The artist's deepest exposures to nature serves as a source of inspiration for the natural elements depicted in her work through juicy, ripe pomegranates, lush forests and infinite flowing waters.

Themes of human consciousness and spirituality flow naturally through Geick’s artwork as she teaches yoga and practices meditation. Through her love of spirituality, she became aligned with the goddesses she depicts in her work and began to explore her concept of divine femininity. Divine femininity refers to an energy or essence of a woman that is goddess-like, it transcends gender and exists within all of humanity. It is an energy that is wise, intuitive, healing and empowering which is tapped into the spiritual realm. Many ancient cultures have a divine feminine concept; the Egyptians have Isis and the Greeks have Aphrodite.

Geick’s goddesses are non-traditional as they transcend racial ambiguity by not depicting conventional flesh tones to stay true to the essence of the feminine energy. Her goddesses are vibrant shades of indigo, pink and red, all which represent auras and various energies rather than skin tones so viewers of all expressions can connect to the artwork. She works with various gender expressions and races that stays true to celebrating life cultural experiences and the universal concept of different goddesses throughout religious history.

“I really love representing the body and particularly the female or female presenting form, and I am pretty true to life in terms of my depictions of bodies and people, but I definitely try to abstract elements into that,” Geick says. “Almost all of my goddesses are super colorful, non-traditional or non-true to life skin tones. That's also important for me in representing the essence of the feminine and making it something that feels relatable for any viewer.”

Geick’s work touches on being in tune with an inner goddess. Because she’s self-taught, she ends up being her own muse and leans towards self portraiture. A few of her pieces are reflective of herself and her own growth and stepping into her femininity and exploring what that means on her own terms. She is able to see herself transcend from a purely human form and view herself through gleaming colors, fern wings, animal patterns and flowers growing from her eyelashes.

“I really felt that it was different goddesses or different women coming and speaking through me and that I was a channel for like another goddesses’ expression of themselves,” Geick says. “I think that's just heavily inspired by the women I meet in day-to-day life and seeing the beauty of their essence and having that work through me. A really beautiful part about sharing my work is to see other women and female identifying people resonate with it.”

Naturally, goddesses are aligned with many environmental themes through the nourishment and nurturing of plants and animals to promote growth. Geick explores the themes of nature that are constantly growing and how it ties to the feminine being the ultimate feminine healer.

“The central aspect to my work would be what I see as this inextricable link between the feminine and nature,” Geick says. “So many elements and qualities of nature are reflected in the feminine like the adaptability to the environment, grace and fluidity in most basic level, just growth and nurturing, like nurturing of the soil to promote the growth of plants and the blossoming of flowers and that fertility like stemming from the ability of people with wombs to be fertile and create life.”

Geick has extensively studied art history and takes inspiration for her goddesses through Greek mythology and literature. She has spotted many problematic techniques for critiquing art as they are rooted in the male gaze that is voyeuristic and scopophilic, which is defined as the practice of enjoying the objectification of women into mere objects to be looked at, rather than subjects with their own voice and subjectivity.

Throughout art history, male artists have been behind the paintings and in control of the brush. Instead of challenging the viewer, artists reinforce toxic gender stereotypes when using women simply as viewing pleasures playing submissive roles.

The male gaze was first theorized by feminist scholar and filmmaker Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Mulvey describes the gaze as scopophilic and derived from voyeurism that ignites “sexual politics,” male viewers are empowered through the sexualized depiction of women. In this restraining position, women are framed as characters controlled by and exist in terms of what they represent to the artist or spectator. The male gaze is an invasive portrayal of women that reduces women to the aesthetic pleasure they provide for the male viewers. The gender divide suggests that the viewer, or the male, is the one who holds the power to assert control.

Contemporary artists began to reclaim the term into the female gaze that uplifts feminine beauty and creates their own beauty standards that challenge the power dynamics between spectators. This practice has initiated many feminist movements in the art realm where female artists call out the gaze for what it is and address the gender divide.

“Through studying art history and seeing the female body and the female nude depicted through a male gaze and even throughout history is offensive,” Geick says. “It’s interesting because women did not have access to art resources and art class, but were always the subject through the male gaze. I felt inspired like many women, just to reclaim that for myself and to depict us in the way that we deserve to in a way that resonates with us.”

Geick’s “Mother Forest” depicts the goddess Gaia through pink and indigo leaves, flowers for eyelashes and bare-faced, natural beauty. Straying away from traditional flesh tones, Geick depicts the aura of the goddess and focuses on its earthy elements. The goddess Gaia is known as the personification of the earth. Gaia is a loving, nurturing mother that supports humanity from the time we are born and continues that nourishment through food sources and water. She is connected with themes of grounding and birth.

“Since the beginning of humanity, earth itself has been tied to the feminine as we speak of Mother Earth and Gaia as this loving, nurturing, caring mother that we were born from and continues to support us through food sources and water,” Geick says.

The divine feminine represents spiritual wisdom and being able to attract and manifest desires into reality. The divine feminine is depicted as light, pure and forgiving. As there are different sides to nature, there are many sides to the feminine. Balance in energies plays a huge role in the creation and manifestation of the divine feminine. Dark femininity is the other half of the divine. This energy focuses on the shadow aspect that brings out the fiery, sensual and transformational parts of womanhood. The dark feminine asserts boundaries, is unapologetic and is tied with dominance.

“The dark feminine is beautiful, but a huge element of the feminine is this seductive power and an alluring aspect,” Geick says. “To me, fruit is nature’s most beautiful offering of abundance and like who are we to deserve fruit? It’s so juicy, delectable and sweet. It’s nature’s candy, but better. Ultimately, we are one of nature’s greatest fits and our ability to flourish and nourish.”

One of the many natural elements depicted in the artist’s work is fruits and how it sensually ties to the dark feminine in terms of its sultry energy and seductiveness. Fruit is visually tied with vulvic and vaginal shapes and patterns. Geick cites papaya, cantaloupe, pomegranate and grapefruit for sources of inspiration for her more erotic paintings that have empowered her sexuality.

“These are nature’s little hints at the feminine and the beauty of it,” Geick says. “I do think there’s a sexual quality and sexual tie to fruit being this juicy and ripe, just the ultimate gift that so many long for to indulge in, including our own female pleasure and finding that for ourselves. Fruit has this seductive, tasty, delicious, sweet quality that ties into the feminine.”

Sensuality is best captured in the artist’s work “Earth Angel’s Offering” that acts as a self portraiture for her own dark femininity and love of fruits. Geick’s skin is interlaced with soft hues of dark blue, purple and pink while her hair glows a glimmering blue. She portrayed herself as nude with flowers covering her nipples while she is cutting fruits and indulging in earth’s natural sweetness.

*“Earth Angel’s Offering” by Johnna Geick.*

Geick was inspired by cutting fruit in her kitchen. She is a vegan which is tied to her faith which ties into her connection with the earth. She wants to eat “wholesomely” and in harmony with earth, so she finds herself in gratitude for the ways that the nourishing foods grow off the trees and in the wild settings she finds herself in. She picks her fruit straight from nature and indulges in it which she finds being a powerful form of grounding with the earth. Even though Geick lives in a noisy, hustling, industrial city, she is still able to have intimate moments of interacting with gifts from earth and finding gratitude in the peace throughout the preparation of cooking.

One of the artist’s personal favorite paintings of all time is entitled “The Maenads” which is heavily inspired by Greek mythology. The work is immersed in nude women running wildly in nature as a celebration. They are depicted playing with snakes and leopards while drinking wine. The maenads are female worshippers of the cult of Dionysus and their lore is trekking in the night and running wild and naked and playing music and dancing. Dionysus is referred to as the god of wine and associated with festivity and pleasure. The maenads are able to commune with animals and become integrated with nature. Their story is demonized, but to Geick, these women were in community and celebrating and breaking free from societal expectations. She depicts them as free, sensual and artistic women in communities celebrating and taking the fear and madness out of that.

Geick channels the maenads’ wild nature and the ecstasy and insanity of their celebrations. To her, they represent escapist elements and the release of human’s most animalistic instincts. She says that stories demonize the wild women for fear of their autonomy and expression that is often censored in society. The story resonated with her because of how witches were demonized for practicing their spirituality and being in touch with their power. Again, the work served as a reclamation for being in tune with the female body. She hopes to reclaim the story of the maenads and their representation by depicting them as wild, sensual and artistic women in their communities by taking the fear and madness out of it.

“The root of their name connects to maniac and madness and I did a lot of deep diving into that mythology for preparation for this piece,” Geick says. “In every story the maenad is demonized because they’re ripping off people’s heads and it’s a fear-based story. There were so many elements of realizing these are just women in community in celebration, breaking free from their societal expectations and worshiping together.”

“Treasure of the Sea,” Geick’s most recent painting which has been a work in progress for the last six months. “Treasure” depicts a sea setting that is immersed in wildlife, natural rock formations and mermaids. The star of the show is a purple and green siren goddess that is sitting inside a pink fluorescent shell and is clutching a dazzling pearl. She is in a relaxed state with jellyfish, seahorses and fish swimming around her. A bright white light shines down on her from above sea and gives life to the creature. This is another example of Geick’s abstract concept of the feminine transcending beyond a human form and bringing women closer to nature.

“Treasure” was started during a live painting event where house music was playing so Geick was in an induced flow state to create from the environment around her.

“I love mermaids and I am so inspired by their mythology and I really wanted to make her my own sea goddess creature,” Geick says. “My concept with her is that she’s this epicenter of life in the ocean. Her femininity is inspiring and nourishing the life around her. She is this alluring force for this life to thrive around her. She is holding the pearl that represents the treasure that is sought after.”

Beyond the treasure of the sea, the real treasure lies in the mermaid’s energy and divinity that allows the life around her to flourish. The mermaid is seen with fish swirling around her head, almost like a natural crown to depict royalty and luxury.

“This motherly quality of providing this comfort, beauty and safety that all these creatures feel drawn to her is her power, so she’s able to give her attention and care to different animals,” Geick says. “I really just wanted it to be flourishing and bursting with life and representing she is feeding that energy. She is part of that nourishment. She is an integral part of the whole ecosystem and finding this haven in this sanctuary, in this deep sea cavern.”

Geick’s goddesses are all portrayed in relaxed and peaceful states, they are never passive and always engaged, alive and present. Her work ties into the reclamation of the female gaze of not possessing any voyeuristic qualities where the woman is lounging around helpless or is an object of pleasure for men. Her goddesses are engaged and powerful. They know their power and are relaxed into a divine feminine state.

“I'm really glad to see that we are seeing less censorship and more openness to the depiction of the nude female,” Geick says.

To view new art pieces and collections, you can follow Johnna Geick on Instagram. Check out the official Wet Paint by Johnna website here for prints and original pieces for purchase.

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