SSNYC-Projects is a curatorial program dedicated to promoting contemporary visual art focusing on ceramics, sculpture and three-dimensional work. Based on funding and availability, Sculpture Space NYC also offers residency opportunities by invitation.

Peter Christian Johnson Solo Exhibition: Acts of Contrition

  • October 12 - November  14th 2018

  • Opening Reception: Friday, October 12th, 6pm - 9pm

  • Hours: Saturday 12pm - 6pm & by appointment 

  • Location: 47-21 35th Street, Long Island City, NY 11101


“Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.” 

― Flannery O'Connor

Acts of Contrition explores the tension between toil and collapse, between precision and failure.  It is a meditation on entropy that uses architecture as a foil to examine human nature and the dichotomy of creation and destruction. 

In this exhibition Johnson utilizes the language of scaffolding as a means to craft a conversation about formation and repair.  The scaffolded network that makes up the sculptures create an interplay between the disparate clay and concrete objects dispersed throughout .  Many of these elements capitalize on the pyro-plastic nature of ceramic material by employing gravity as a transformative weight used to bend and distort Johnson’s complex porcelain structures during the firing process.  These objects expose the relationship between soft and hard, the fluidity of a membrane, and the moment of intersection between these contrasting elements. The arduous process of their creation coupled with the grace found in their collapse begins to speak to the paradox of the human condition.

Peter Christian Johnson is a sculptor and ceramic artist who is currently serving as an Assistant Professor of Art at Kent State University.  He earned his MFA from Penn State University and has been a resident and visiting artist at the Alberta College of Art and Design, Australian National University, and the Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts.  His work has been exhibited internationally.