Michael Janis

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Michael Janis
Michael Janis creates imagery using glass sgrafftio technique.jpg
Janis in 2008
Born (1959-10-11) October 11, 1959 (age 65)
Occupation Glass artist
Known forsgraffito technique on glass
Awards Fulbright scholar 2012
Michael Janis, "Echoes"; kilnformed glass, glass sgraffito imagery, 2015. Michael Janis, "Echoes"; kilnformed glass, glass sgraffito imagery, 2015.jpg
Michael Janis, "Echoes"; kilnformed glass, glass sgraffito imagery, 2015.

Michael Janis (born 1959) is an American artist currently residing in Washington, DC where he is one of the directors of the Washington Glass School. He is known [1] for his work on glass using the exceptionally difficult sgraffito technique on glass. [2] [3]

Contents

Janis was a 2012 Fulbright scholar [4] and as such he taught at the University of Sunderland in England, where he also taught at the UK's National Glass Centre, and also became an artist-in-residence at the Institute for International Research in Glass (IIRG). The James Renwick Alliance named him Distinguished Glass Artist for 2014, [5] and subsequently Janis presented a talk about his work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. [5] In 2016, Janis was nominated and won [6] the Washington, DC Mayor's Arts Award for Excellence in the Arts. [6] He has also received over ten separate District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities' Artist Fellowship awards, [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] most recently for FY 2025.

Washington, DC news organization, The DC Line, published an article about Janis titled “Art during COVID-19”. The article focused on how the pandemic changed his studio practice and artwork, highlighting the universal need for connections. " [12]

Washington, DC’s Office of Planning, in partnership with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH) engaged Janis to create a new memorial honoring the enslaved people who built the United States Capitol in Ward 5, at the intersection of Bladensburg Road, Douglas Street, and 28th Street NE [13]

Early life and education

Michael Janis was born in Chicago on October 11, 1959, the youngest son of Paul and Alicia Janis. His mother is of Filipino, Chinese and Spanish ancestry, and his father is of German and Greek descent. [14] Janis’ family moved soon after to suburban Niles, Illinois. He attended Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. After a 20-year career as an architect in the United States and Australia, Janis returned to the US in 2003 with a focus on working with glass. In 2005, he became a co-director of the Washington Glass School. [15] [16]

Critical reception and awards

Public art / commissioned artworks

Exhibitions

Janis has exhibited a 2011 solo show at The Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts, [39] as well as the Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center, Portsmouth, VA, [40] the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA, [41] Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus, OH, [42] Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD, [26] Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, IL, [43] Sunderland Museum, Sunderland, England, [44] Flemish Center for Contemporary Glass Art, Lommel, Belgium, [45] National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center Gallery, Bethesda, MD, [26] Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, [46] and Lynchburgh College, VA. [47] In 2021 he was one of the artists invited to The Phillips Collection's juried invitational, Inside Outside, Upside Down exhibition, a show that was described by The Washington City Paper art critic as forcing "us to remember a time that left us 'confused, battered, and disoriented' through the eyes of 64 D.C.-area artists." [48]

Tacoma, Washington’s, Museum of Glass acquired three glass sculptures by Janis for their permanent collection; first displaying his works in 2022 exhibit titled “Boundless Curiosity”. " [49]

At the 2022 collateral exhibition Glasstress of the 59th Venice Biennale of Arts by Adriano Berengo, A special collaborative sculpture work by Tim Tate, Michael Janis and Chris Shea was installed in Berengo Studio's Art Space in Murano, an old glass making furnace abandoned in 1965 and transformed into an exhibition space. The show's large central cast glass and copper sculpture by the trio presented themes on climate change denial.  [50]

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