She has worked in collaboration with other artists, architects, urban planners, design teams, arts commissions, specific communities and cultural groups. She was raised in the Philippines through high school and has lived in Chicago, San Francisco and Oakland since coming to the United States. She received her BFA at University of California, Santa Cruz and her MFA at Mills College in Oakland, California.

Poethig's public art works intervene in the urban landscape, in neighborhoods, on freeways, in parks, hospitals, schools, homeless shelters, cultural centers, advertising venues and public buildings.

She has received numerous commissions and awards for this work. Her paintings, sculpture and installations reflect her interest in satire, symbol, human nature, society and our consumerist culture. She has produced and participated in performance events that mix feminism, global politics, costume, props, cabaret, experimental music and video.

Johanna Poethig is on the faculty of the Institute for Visual and Public Art (VPA) at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB). As an arts educator and community artist she deconstructs traditional "art world" boundaries in a collaborative artistic process grounded in research, production, critique, improvisation and reciprocal learning. As one of CSUMB's pioneer faculty she contributes this experience to VPA's innovative and socially engaged arts program. Her interest in the dialogue between the public and personal, politics and aesthetics, the ridiculous and the sublime and an inclusive cultural life inform her process and inspire her work.