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£15
Make and experiment with natural pigments in a workshop reflecting on colour and our relationship to the natural world
Join artist Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck for a hands-on pigment-making workshop exploring colour through an ecological approach to materials and making.
Johanna’s practice is rooted in care and a close attention to the natural world. In this three-hour workshop, she will introduce participants to the process of making pigments for use on paper, sharing methods drawn from her own material-based practice and creating space to experiment with the colours produced.
Taking inspiration from Autograph’s exhibition Our Bodies Have Been Bridges, the workshop considers our relationship to land and the materials we work with. Across the exhibition, the body becomes a place where memory is carried, while the natural world holds connections to ancestry and ways of knowing. This session approaches making with a similar sense of attentiveness – asking how care for materials might also shape the ways we create.
Over the afternoon, participants will learn about the pigment-making process before putting these techniques into practice and using their handmade colours on paper. The workshop offers a welcoming introduction to working with pigment while encouraging a slower, more thoughtful relationship with the materials around us.
All materials will be provided, and are included in the price of the ticket.
Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck (b. 1990, France) is a transdisciplinary artist based in rural Oxfordshire. Her practice, rooted in ecological awareness, spans painting, sculpture, photography, publishing, horticulture, and participatory projects. Johanna’s work expresses care and tenderness, reflecting on the fragility and beauty of life.
Recent solo exhibitions include Dreaming About Tomorrow at Nidi Gallery, Tokyo (2022) and Soft Soft at Mutty (Castiglione delle Stiviere, 2025). Group exhibitions include Soil at Somerset House, London (2025), The Equal Right to Live and Blossom at Kate MacGarry, London (2024), and Edge Effects at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2024). She has been an invited artist in residency at BOAN1942 (Seoul, 2023) and Brookes University (Oxford, 2025/26), amongst others.
Johanna tends two allotment plots in rural Oxfordshire, where, inspired by natural farming and following veganic permaculture principles, herbs, vegetables, fruits, flowers, dyes, and medicinal plants are often grown from organic seeds. She has learned about Natural Dyes during her childhood in rural Alsace (France) from her grandmother and later while living in India and travelling to Japan. In addition, Johanna founded the collaborative initiative The Gardening Drawing Club - which included a natural dye plant plot- and Poetic Pastel Press. She is the cofounder of the printed publication series Journal du Thé – Contemporary Tea Culture. She has organised and facilitated workshops and learning programs for adults and children at multiple British art institutions.
Autograph's events are popular, and often sell out. We recommend booking a ticket in advance. If you need to cancel your ticket for any reason, you can receive a refund up to 24 hours before the start of the event. You do not need to bring your paper ticket to the event.
The ticket price for this event is £15 and includes all materials. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. If this ticket price is unaffordable for you please get in touch with Ishy at Ishy@autograph-abp.co.uk about free ticketing options.
Everyone is welcome at Autograph. Planning a visit? Have a look at our Visit Us page to find out more about getting to the gallery, accessibility and more.
Autograph welcomes people with all types of disabilities.
This workshop will be seated.
Our building and entrance is step free. A wheelchair accessible lift goes to all floors.
This event will take place in our Studio, on the ground floor.
Due to capacity, tickets for this event are limited.
The ticket cost includes all materials.
Banner: Koyoltzintli, Mud Woman Gazing from the series MEDA, 2019. From the series MEDA. © and courtesy the artist.
Images on page: 1 & 2) Courtesy the artist. 3) Autograph, London. Photograph by Kate Elliott
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Autograph is a space to see things differently. Since 1988, we have championed photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice, sharing how photographs reflect lived experiences and shape our understanding of ourselves and others.
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