Master Scissor Artist Karl Johnson

Considered America's premier silhouette artist, Karl Johnson has been practicing this extremely rare art form for most of his life.  Karl learned this unique skill as a young boy from his father who had been taught many years earlier by a long time friend of the family.

Karl took to this unusual art form extremely well.  Something he attributes, in part, to having vision in only one eye.  Karl was born being able to see only from his right eye.  Not having binocular vision forces Karl to judge the distance and shape of an object by examining its shadow.  This allows Karl to capture an image in shadow in an uncanny way.

Karl's work hangs in the homes of many Hollywood notables including Jennifer Garner, Reese Witherspoon, Oprah, Hilary Duff, Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes, Drew Barrymore and many others. He recently appeared on the ABC game show, To Tell the Truth. He was commissioned by Marc Anthony to create silhouettes of Jennifer Lopez for her 40th Birthday Party. Karl also appeared in person at the party to cut silhouettes for the guests. Most recently Karl created silhouettes for the guests at Reese Witherspoon's wedding to Jim Toth and Drew Barrymore's wedding to Will Kopelman.

His work has also been featured in numerous national publications such as People, The O List in O Magazine, InStyle, Martha Stewart Wedding, People, Stylewatch, Parenting Magazine, Elle Decor, USA Today, Elegant Bride Magazine, Traditional Home Magazine, Country Home Magazine, Domino Magazine, Romantic Home and Nickelodean Magazine, & Ladies Home Journal.  Karl was commissioned to do a series of life size silhouette portraits which were featured in the Kip's Bay Designer Show house in NYC. You can also see Karl's work on several tv shows & movies including the Black Swan movie starring Natalie Portman. 

Karl works with many design firms to create specialty silhouette pieces for a variety of special clients all over the world.

Starting when he was only ten years old, Karl estimates that he has freehand cut hundreds of thousands of silhouette images so far in his career. Karl operates his studio and resides, with his wife Lauren, son Cooper, and daughter Tenney in Southern California.