Randy Johnston
BIOGRAPHY
Randy is recognized and has exhibited internationally as an artist for 53years. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship, two Visual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Distinguished teaching award in American Arts from the James Renwick Society of the Smithsonian, and the Walter Gropius Award for Artists. He is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics. He received his MFA from Southern Illinois University and a BFA in Studio Arts from the University of Minnesota where he studied with Warren MacKenzie. He also studied in Japan at the pottery of Shimaoka Tatsuzo who was a student of Shoji Hamada. Johnston has presented hundreds of lectures and guest artist presentations worldwide. He has work in numerous international museums and private collections. Including the Victoria and Albert ,Smithsonian, Boston Museum Fine Arts, Minneapolis Institute Arts, Los Angeles County Museum.
artist statement
As an artist, I am engaged in tracking down a primary moment, a moment that reveals vulnerability, emotion, intellect, the conscious, and subconscious. Seeking to transform that moment into artistic creation compels me.
My work has specific modern connotations and addresses the development of abstraction within the aesthetic of utilitarian objects. My pursuit is to enlarge the boundaries of conventional perceptions and enable new methods of communication and combination to emerge. The work considers the relationship of architectural structure and spatial orientation. Many of the pieces suggest through their framework both an internal and external boundary system. Connecting these systems and identifying the dualities and the metaphoric potential of a form’s austere directness, aggressiveness, and simplicity are challenges to be considered with each piece. Essential to a strong representation of each form is a feeling for its overall spatial structure. Moreover, the surface textures and marks are not an afterthought, but an integral component of completion and fulfillment.
This creative and physical activity is my attempt to connect philosophies informed by diverse ideas brought forward in time by artists of many cultures. The vases and rectilinear pieces make significant reference to the figural idols from the Cycladic civilization, which flourished in the Aegean region from 3,300 to 2,000 BCE. The Cycladic approach to natural line and proportion is reflected in a serious sculptural intent in the work. Motifs seen in African statuary and masks also serve as a catalyst for my approach to form. The use of proportion, texture, and gestural marks involves intense energy and instinctive levels of identification, which leads to an evocative spatial presence. My desire to grant these pieces the aura of ritual objects is an attempt to reconcile objective reality with my own spiritual reality.
I am drawn to the curious potency and beauty in shino and nuka glazes and the richly colored flashing of wood- fired surfaces. The encrustations, pinholes, crawling, and iron bleeds that result from a limited palette of glazes and slips are part of my conversations with elusive and complex surfaces. These surfaces are storming with immutable contradictions and oppositions, distortions and idiosyncrasies. The textured surfaces and contrasting skin-like tautness give the pieces a sensual quality and direct heightened attention to the extensive mark making in the soft clay during the creating process. A sense of vigorous physicality and strong-bodied liveliness contrasts with subtle aesthetic nuances in the finished work.
As I continue this complex dialogue of material and process, my hope is that the tensions and challenges embodied in each piece make the work emotional yet intellectual, vulnerable yet vital.
