ITERATIONS: Rhythm & Reason

Peter Christian Johnson

Peter Christian Johnson is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Kent State University after spending 11 years at Eastern Oregon University. He earned his MFA from Penn State University and a BS in Environmental Science at Wheaton College. Peter has been a resident artist and visiting lecturer at the Alberta College of Art and Design, Australian National University, The Archie Bray Foundation, the LH Project, and the Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts. His work has been exhibited in Canada, Australia, and throughout the United States.

His work explores the tension between acts of labor and collapse, between precision and failure. It is a meditation on entropy that uses architecture as a foil to examine the dichotomy of beauty and loss. He is interested in transformation, which is expressed in both destruction and growth. Much of his work involves creating complex porcelain structures that are encouraged to warp or collapse in the strain of the firing. They expose the relationship between soft and hard, the fluidity of a membrane, and the moment of intersection between these contrasting elements. Ultimately, they are a metaphor for the human condition, paradoxically both broken and at times beautiful.

peterchristianjohnson.com

Janice Lessman-Moss

Janice Lessman-Moss maintains a weaving studio in her home in Kent, Ohio, USA where she is Emeritus Professor at Kent State University. She was awarded a United States Artists Fellowship in 2019, the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award, the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio, an Arts Midwest/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Crafts, and nine Individual Artist Fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council throughout her career. Her work been presented throughout the United States and internationally, including a recent solo exhibition at the Kent State University Museum.

In her art, she embraces the unique vocabulary of digital design and its relation to the binary functioning of threads on the loom. Shiny metal wire is integrated into the woven compositions to enhance the richness of textural contrasts and engage the viewer in more active discovery. Traversing the space in front of the weavings reveals a play of light, reflection, and shadow within its low relief sculptural surface. She works with abstract systems in networks of interlocking shapes to create a dynamic topography expressive of her interest in Random Walk theory and the actual practice of walking; rhythmic movement all rooted in a matrix of circles and squares.

janicelessman-moss.com

Brinsley Tyrrell

Brinsley Tyrrell is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans drawing, sculpture, architectural design, metalwork, and large-scale public commissions. Educated at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, University of London, he holds an Intermediate Degree in Fine Arts and a National Diploma in Design, with a focus on sculpture and terracotta. Tyrrell is known for monumental public artworks, including Behind the Brain Plaza at Kent State University—a 250-foot retaining wall featuring over 3,000 life-sized cast concrete books and five sandstone carvings, including The Brain. His work has earned the Cleveland Arts Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s May Show Sculpture Award, and the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio. Internationally, he represented England at Artists ’77, a United Nations-organized exhibition featuring two artists from each of 62 countries.
 
“I think of myself as a sculptor. But over the years I have worked in many different materials, and the scale of my sculptures have varied from tabletop works to large commissioned public sculptures and environments whose context is relocated to their location and weavings. I am inspired by nature. The landscape I live in and my feelings and memories of that ever-changing landscape.” 

artistbrinsleytyrrell.net