Justin Ginsberg is a Texas-based artist and educator. Since 2013, he has been the head of the glass area in the Art and Art History Department and an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, while also pursuing his own creative practice and research.
His artwork focuses on the powerful capacity to communicate through process, action, and gesture. Sparked by his intrigue into the properties of materials, he abandons traditional methods of glass processes seeking new ways to consider making.
Justin questions and confronts the perceived boundaries of a material and the presumed nature of things relying on metaphor and gesture to express his interest into the systems and structures used for understanding the world around us. Utilizing research within materials science, the history of science, and current contemporary issues, his works considers the tenuous boundary and symbiotic relationship between order and chaos, strength and fragility, comfort and discomfort , and attention and distraction.
Often through the accumulation of the smaller individual parts, and repetitive action, his objects, installations, and social practices investigate the innate entropic relationship between parts to a whole focusing on the subtleties of causality and the individual histories ingrained within the elements illuminating a collective gesture - utilizing the aesthetic qualities of a material and meaningfulness of an action.
Conducting field work through residencies and fellowships, presenting at national and international conferences, writing for publications, curating, exhibiting research, as well as collaborative social projects, his practice remains robust and integrated across disciplines and materials. His most recent research embodies not only material diversity, but practice as well. It has become more of a central focus within his work to address contemporary communities, culture, environment, and education.
Current and Recent Projects
November 2-3, 2023: “The Maker – Research Experiences for Undergraduates – Developing Creative Technologies within Material Practices”, Glass Education for a New Era, presenter, The Robert M. Minkoff Foundation Academic Symposium at Urban Glass, New York, NY,
2023: New Glass Review 43, published by the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York (juried by Davin Ebanks (Assistant Professor, Head of Glass, Kent State University, Kent, OH), Kim Harty (Associate Professor and Section Lead of Glass, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI), Kimberly Thomas (Flameworker/Sculptor, Denver, CO), and Samantha De Tillio (Independent Curator, Writer, Guest curator for New Glass Review 43, Beacon, NY))
September 11-22, 2023: Artist in Residence with Anna Riley, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY
August 21-28, 2023: Artist in Residence, Watermill Center, Watermill, NY (collaboration with ESTAR(SER)
June 18 - July 21, 2023: Artist in Residence, Vespertine Press, Boulder, CO
June 11, 2022 - May 31, 2024: "REU Site: Hybrid Design and Fabrication," Sponsored by National Science Foundation, Federal, Total Amount $402,181.25.
October 2022 - October 2023: THE THIRD MEANING, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA (co-curator with ESTAR(SER) and exhibiting collaborative artwork with Anna Riley)
August 2022 - March 2023: Solo Exhibition, Sky Column: Shaking the Shadow, The Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX