The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
John Lauer
John Lauer ART + DesignAthens OH 45701 United States Home Phone: (208) 720-7723 Website: John Lauer ART + Design
Bio
I’m an artist and designer living in a treehouse on the edge of Appalachia. I have a BA in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, a MFA in Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a M.Arch from Georgia Tech, and for all that, was still a lousy intern when I started in architecture some 40 years ago. Often bored with board drafting and the limitations of orthogonal geometry, I started using wire and tissue paper to create a more fluid, curvilinear form language that I eventually adapted to the computer as the architectural software advanced. I now make what I call Demon Heads out of paper, first modeling the heads in the computer, then flattening the shapes into patterns which I cut out of paper and assemble edge-to-edge. Throughout my career, there has been an easy flow of ideas and techniques between my architectural and exhibit design work and my more personal art making.
Artist Statement
Discovering the world in me
Masks, myths and fairy tales, primitive architecture, festival structures –theme parks, even– I draw on world traditions to talk about me, my place in the world –what it feels like inside my head in combat with the outside world.
Forms and stories –the more fantastical the better– I reinterpret within my own belief system, in my own form language, in the attempt to understand what is particular to me but which, at the same time, might be universal to people of all stripes.
Making the weak strong
Evil spirits of the world I see as inner demons and use to acknowledge the ugliness within –the seething anger, the disabling shame– but instead of pushing it away, I draw on it as an energizing force in the face of hostility. My masks and helmets are reminders to call forth your demons, to show your true colors, to stand up for your beliefs. They are battle-wear for the current round of Culture Wars. The fact they are made of paper only underscores the hilarious grimness of the fight we’re engaged in.
Just as I find ways of bucking up inner defenses, I look for ways of strengthening a flimsy sheet of paper. In bones, leaves, shells, I find interior trusses, curves-upon-curves, many interlocking pieces. The result is a thin shell construction strong as a wasp nest, tight as a cicada shell.
Going inside
Next, after six years of masks: Hell Mouths and inner wombs.
