Wilma Johnson was born in London in 1960.She studied Painting at St. Martins College of Art 1978-82.
In 1980 she founded the neo-Naturists performance art group with Christine and Jennifer Binnie and Grayson Perry. During the eighties she performed with the group in a variety of venues including the Royal Opera House and the Spanisn Anarchist Centre. At this tme her paintings were inspired by hitch hiking around the arctic wastes of Iceland and Lappland.
She left the group in 1987 when she went to live in Mexico . She stayed there for a year, painting in hotel rooms, and following any fiesta from the Veracruz carnival to the Night of the Radish in Oaxaca.
Shortly after returning to London she got married and went to live in Ballydavid, an isolated fishing village on the West coast of Ireland.She stayed there for ten years, then in 2001, she moved to Biarritz and took up surfing after swapping a board for a painting in a bar in San Sebastian.
Wilma now lives in Guéthary, a Basque whaling village and international surf mecca with her three children.