SPRING 2022 JURIED EXHIBITION
Pinellas County Center for the Arts annual juried exhibition highlights contemporary work in a wide variety of media by the student artists with the Visual arts Program. The work is further adjudicated by artist and former faculty Alan Johnson for awards.
AWARD RECIPIENTS
Award of Distinction: Kailyn Placey
Award of Merit: Malyssa Ollar
Honorable Mention: Satori Abdur-Rabbani
Honorable Mention: Natalie Galan
Honorable Mention: Logan Loar
Honorable Mention: Dan Christopher
Honorable Mention: Jada Calhoun
Honorable Mention: Leah Linkogle
Honorable Mention: Amanda Vehorn
Honorable Mention: Isabella Piazza
CLICK ON A GRADE LEVEL GALLERY BELOW
ADJUDICATING JUROR
ALAN JOHNSON
Alan Johnson grew up in Tampa, Florida where he received his B.A. in Fine Arts and his M.A. in Art Education from the University of South Florida. He taught art for 35 years in the Pinellas County School system from 1977 to 2012. For 28 years he was Chairman of the Visual Arts Department at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School. He has exhibited for over 40 years in numerous juried and invitational shows in Florida. Now working as a full-time artist, his work is currently on exhibit at Florida CraftArt Gallery in St. Petersburg.
Alan was a 1991 recipient of an Artist Resource Fund Grant and a 1996 Friends of the Arts Award for Art Educator from the Pinellas County Arts Council. In 2005 he was a recipient of a Surdna Grant to study ceramics with Bede Clarke at the University of Missouri. In 2015 he was awarded his first one man show at the Morean Art Center and in 2021 he had a featured article in Pottery Making Illustrated.
When making art I always start by meandering down a formalist path of line, shape, form, color and texture . After that it's a crap shoot. Problem solving with the basic elements of art is the initial nudge, but pushing the journey forward is tricky, full of eureka moments and a good dose of dead ends. In an attempt to cobble together a coherent body of work, the path may meander again, below the surface, into narratives and memories that eventually resurface as the destination. Hopefully the emerging images will hold together as a cohesive mix bound by threads of color, texture and form. Life is temporal, God is eternal and a meandering path can be good for the soul.
All of my work is a mix of personal metaphors, memories and references to landscape and the human figure. The pieces are glazed, multifired ceramic forms using a combination of wheel thrown and hanbuilt techniques fired in an electric kiln. The Casa de Flores pieces are simple metaphors for home and the complexity of what that is. The Flor Fina Series derives its name from an ornate label on a cigar box. These somewhat cigar shaped figures and dwellings, wrapped in plant-like textures, are as much reflective musings as they are visual responses to the natural world of color, form and texture.
—— Learn more about Alan Johnson at www.ajohnsonartist.com