- Art & Design
From Santa Teresa, located on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, Johanna Van Parijs develops a practice that extends visual art into an expansive form of interior design. Over a period of more than twenty years, her work has evolved from fine art and video into sculpture and large-scale, bespoke art constructions. Yet across all disciplines, a personal signature remains evident, testifying to a deep sense of layering.
Van Parijs was born in Belgium and grew up in Ostend. From an early age, she was granted access to artistic freedom, in part thanks to her grandmother, who was both a seamstress and an oil painter. Her home functioned as a place where colour and experimentation were considered self-evident. These early experiences made art a refuge, but also a means of grasping complex emotions and memories — such as memory, loss and transience.
She studied three-dimensional art at LUCA School of Arts in Ghent and subsequently obtained a master’s degree in video art. During these years, she began working intensively with depth, texture and mixed media. Layers became an essential part of her visual language, not only visually but also as a way of allowing her work to feel ‘alive’. 
Her early experiences made art a refuge, but also a means of grasping complex emotions and memories — such as memory, loss and transience
A subsequent phase in her career emerged through interior design. Her very first project was immediately exceptional: a camp in the Omani desert. There, she developed a sensitivity to how materials, volumes and light relate to one another within a space. That experience remains an important point of departure in her work to this day and led to a continuous overlap between her interior designs and her artistic practice. Since settling in Costa Rica, she has worked primarily with locally and sustainably sourced materials. Tropical influences from her immediate surroundings are integrated into collages, wooden objects and large-scale installations. She transforms natural textures into geometric totems, wall-filling constructions and freestanding sculptures that make heads turn. 
Art as an instrument
Across all these forms, one idea plays a central role: art as an instrument for healing. Van Parijs explicitly describes her practice as a way of making inner processes visible and translating them into physical objects. This conviction runs like a thread through her oeuvre, which ranges from ongoing series to long-term, bespoke installations.
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Start image by Tessa Donchula
Other images by Jade Madoe
Text by Carolien Depamelaere