Rashid Johnson Ceramics

Artist's Choice Online Viewing Room
In support of Prep for Prep

Rashid Johnson is among an influential cadre of contemporary American artists whose work employs a wide range of media to explore themes of art history, individual and shared cultural identities, personal narratives, literature, philosophy, materiality, and critical history. Johnson’s work is known for its narrative embedding of a pointed range of everyday materials and objects, often associated with his childhood and frequently referencing collective aspects of African American intellectual history and cultural identity.

‘Many of Johnson’s works convey rhythms of the occult and mystic: evoking his desire to transform and expand each included object’s field of association in the process of reception.’

Artist Choice Online Viewing Room

Rashid Johnson & Prep for Prep

These vessels’ glazed surfaces provide Johnson with an intimate forum for painterly and sculptural investigation. Echoing the unique hand-painted tiles incorporated in the artist’s new mosaic paintings, Johnson explores his anxious and broken men in three dimensions. These ceramic sculptures by Johnson take on a shamanistic quality. The vessels form a framework and can be perceived as an ecosystem for forms of life, drawing on the themes of nature and botany which appear in the artist’s past works.

Johnson has chosen to donate fifty percent of the proceeds from the purchase of the works online to Prep for Prep, the not for profit organization founded in 1978 with a stated mission to ‘develop ethical and effective leaders who reflect our diverse society for the enduring benefit of all’. For more information please see prepforprep.org.