Artist Rose Johnson, an English-born painter and muralist who spent more than 20 years working in Phoenix and Bisbee, was among 25 people who died after drinking homemade liquor in Indonesia.
Johnson, 48, was one of at least four foreigners who died in the past two weeks after drinking homemade liquor laced with methanol on the resort islands of Bali and Lombok.
She died Monday, said Ida Bagus Putu Alit, chief of forensics at Bali's Sanglah Hospital.
Johnson, whose art is also sold in Tucson, moved to Bali to marry last fall, according to a marriage announcement published in the Sierra Vista Herald newspaper.
Johnson was well-known in Bisbee, where her art adorns the Jonquil Motel and a peace wall commissioned by the city. She also was commissioned to produce art for Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and for new electric buses in Tempe.
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Johnson was born in Coventry, England, and moved to Phoenix in 1986, where she lived in a tiny apartment. She moved to Bisbee in the mid-1990s.
Paintings she did while living in Phoenix were heavy and gray, reflecting the city's concrete construction, pollution and congestion, she told The Arizona Republic in 1995.
"When I moved to Bisbee it was like I was lifted off the ground," Johnson told the Republic. "My figures started to fly, and my colors came back."
Johnson's art was featured in a one-woman show after her first visit to Bali in 2007, said Jane Hamilton, who owns the Tucson gallery where her "Beautiful Bali" exhibit was shown.
"It was a dream of hers to live in Bali," Hamilton said. "She was entranced by Bali and fell in love. She was a wonderful person, compassionate, full of life."
A memorial is planned at a Phoenix art gallery next month.
In Indonesia, police spokes-man Gde Sugianyar said that 20 others fell ill and were hospitalized after consuming home-brewed rice liquor, arak. He said two people had been detained in connection with the poisonings.
Briton Alan Colen, Rene Puper from the Netherlands and Rachel Craig from Ireland were among the dead, Ida Bagus Putu Alit, chief of forensics at Bali's Sanglah Hospital, told The Associated Press.
Colen, 59, died Saturday at a hospital after drinking arak he had bought from a stall near his home in Kuta.
Puper, 23, and 25-year-old Craig died Sunday on the neighboring island of Lombok after drinking homemade palm wine, local official Zainuddin told the AP. The pair were rushed to hospitals in the town of Mataram after they were seen staggering late Saturday, he said.
Like many Indonesians, Zainuddin goes by a single name.
Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, can be used for fuel and is an ingredient in formaldehyde as well as plastics and paints.
Alcohol is heavily taxed in Indonesia, the world's most-populous Muslim nation, and the high prices have spawned a huge black market for wine and liquor.
On the Net
View some of Rose Johnson's art at janehamiltonfineart.com
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