Josh Johnson
Josh Johnson
Sculptor Josh Johnson makes connections between two environments – one at hand and the other remembered. Josh earned a BFA at the University of North Dakota, and an MFA at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He was awarded a 2016 Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, a Kimmel Harding Nelson Residency, and was twice selected as a finalist for the William and Dorothy Yeck Young Sculptor’s Competition at Miami University in Oxford, OH. He has exhibited nationally, including shows at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, the Soo Visual Art Center in Minneapolis, Colorado State University, and Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati. Josh was the Residency Arts Technician at the Bemis Center from 2016-19. He has taught art courses at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska Wesleyan University, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and the College of Visual Arts (St. Paul, MN). Josh currently teaches sculpture and 3D foundations at Missouri State University and is employed as a craftsman at OP Hardwoods (Springfield, MO).
As I go about my daily routines, I have encounters that give me pause. Particular objects, their placement, the spaces they occupy, and my body's relationship to these signifiers create an intersection of a remembered place and my current context. A connection is made between two environments, one at hand and the other remembered. I tap into this brief merger of my present location and a memory, identifying objects as personal landmarks and a catalyst for construction.
I respond to materiality and draw upon my history of making to relate ideas. A snow shovel sliding around in the back of my car and stacks of polystyrene from past projects, the butting-together of commonplace subjects and familiar studio materials produce unexpected tensions. I carve, construct, and join low materials to fragmented objects and portions of past sculptures. I want the work to punch through time – to inhabit a landscape between ‘here’ and ‘there.’
