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Apparent Horizons
The Sculptural Glass Art of Benjamin Johnson
Artist Statement
This work branches from an extended theme I have focused on throughout my work in which I wish for the viewer to consider their own presence and relation to intangible micro and macrocosmic realities. Consider space, a solar system specifically, with its immensity in mass and distance in comparison to our individual selves occupying such a minute parcel of its consistency. I am fascinated by the grandeur of space, its cyclical nature, the mass of matter moving around in perfect tension keeping a pattern through which we have created an interpretation of time. Yet I am also confounded by my own relation to this: how I move through it, with it, seemingly unaware of its occurrence but accepting its cycle naturally. Self-awareness in space is seemingly limited. It can be even more so by the ability to control focus of our inner selves which can either cloud out or possibly take in more than what we are currently awake to around us. I wish for the viewer to experience the work and consider their relation and connection to such realities of mass and space matter, and how we interpret them through light and time which systematically visually shifts our interpretation simply by our position in it.
About Benjamin Johnson
Born in Cicero, Indiana, Benjamin Johnson Currently lives in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his BFA from Kent State University and his MFA in glass from Ball State University. Johnson’s work is widely exhibited and held in the collections of the Indiana State Museum, the Evansville Art Museum, and the Glick Eye Institute. His work has received numerous best in show awards and he has been recognized as a Rising Star in contemporary glass at the Museum of American Glass in Millville, New Jersey. He has been the recipient of a Windgate Fellowship Grant Award, and Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship, a Metropolitan Contemporary Glass Croup Jerry Raphael Fellowship, a Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship, and the Indianapolis Art Center Skip McKinney Faculty of the Year Award. Benjamin has taught glass at Herron School of Art, Indianapolis Art Center, the Pittsburgh Glass Center, and is currently Chair of Craft + Design at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
An artist committed sculpture, the design of contemporary glass objects, and the architecture of spatial installations, Johnson’s work explores pattern and texture to tell visual stories about our environment. Benjamin wants the viewer to consider their presence in relation to intangible micro and macrocosmic realities. His work considers the impression left from the connective interaction that affect and contribute to a visual history which tells a story of the natural cycles in our environment.
Pieces featured in this show
