Born in Chicago, IL
Lives and works in Washington, DC
Michael Janis is a contemporary artist working primarily
in glass, using figurative imagery and layered narrative structures
to explore identity, migration, memory and the complexities of cultural
inheritance. His work bridges studio glass and contemporary art, positioning
glass as a conceptual and psychological medium through which personal
and collective histories are examined.
Drawing from his background as the child of Chinese and
Filipino immigrants and the grandson of Greek and German immigrants,
Janis explores themes of assimilation, belonging and transformation.
Trained originally as an architect, he brings a strong sense of structure,
spatial rhythm and material precision to works that combine narrative
imagery, surface complexity and sculptural form.
After a twenty-year career in architecture in the United
States and Australia, Janis returned to the U.S. to focus fully on his
studio art practice. In 2005, he became Co-Director of the Washington
Glass School in Washington, DC, where he has helped shape the nationally
recognized center for contemporary glass, public art and community-engaged
practice.
Janis’s work has been exhibited internationally at
museums, galleries and art fairs including the Museum of Glass (Tacoma),
the Venice Biennale’s Glasstress exhibition, the Phillips
Collection, Fuller Craft Museum, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, SOFA Chicago
and Art Miami. His work is included in the collections of the Art Institute
of Chicago, Museum of Glass, Fuller Craft Museum, Baker Museum, Museum
of American Glass, Barry Art Museum, and the DC Commission on the Arts
Permanent Collection, among others.
Public art and civic memory have become central components
of Janis’s practice. His commissioned works include monumental
cast-glass doors for the Library of Congress Adams Building, installations
for healthcare and civic spaces throughout the Washington region and
large-scale community-engaged public artworks developed through the
Washington Glass School. Janis was commissioned by the DC Office of
Planning and the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities to develop
a memorial honoring the enslaved people who built the U.S. Capitol,
combining narrative imagery, architectural form and community participation.
Janis received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2012 to the
University of Sunderland and the National Glass Centre in the United
Kingdom, where he also served as Artist-in-Residence at the Institute
for International Research in Glass (IIRG). He received the Mayor’s
Arts Award for Excellence in the Arts from the DC Commission on the
Arts & Humanities and has been recognized as a Distinguished Artist
by both the James Renwick Alliance and the Lowe Art Museum at the University
of Miami.
His work has been featured in American Craft Magazine,
Glass Art Magazine, The Washington Post and The Visual Arts in
Washington, DC: A History Since 1900.