[1] She attended University of California, Berkeley, where she studied with artists John Haley, Ward Lockwood, Earle Loran, and Margaret Peterson, as well as with Worth Ryder, who taught art history.

She would continue to travel around the world over the course of her life, including to Nepal, Spain, India, Cambodia, and Italy, and her subsequent works reflect a myriad of international artistic traditions.

Johnston's visual language was inspired by both modern and ancient art, and her mixed-media compositions often center on ambiguous, semi-abstract figures, plants, animals, and architectural forms in mythical landscapes.

In 1950, Johnston was included in a juried exhibition, curated by Andrew C. Ritchie, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where her etching won first prize.

Her scale can be very deceptive, however; once it entraps the eye it leads it through extraordinary shifts and reversals, so that the microscopic is revealed as immense vanishes into the small...”[3]Johnson continued to exhibit her work nationally and internationally over the course of her life, including in Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

[3] Johnston would form enduring friendships with her classmate Leonard Edmondson, whose printing press she used upon her move to Los Angeles, as well as a number of fellow Southern California artists, including June Wayne, Lee Mullican, and Emerson Woelffer.

[10] The estate of Ynez Johnston is represented by Louis Stern Fine Arts, who are preparing to present a major retrospective exhibition in 2025, accompanied by an extensive catalogue.