Michael Janis
Michael Janis
I work primarily with glass to explore identity, emotion, and the layers that sit beneath the face we present to the world. Much of my work centers on the human figure—often fragmented, abstracted, or interrupted—because that feels closer to how we actually experience ourselves and one another: partial, shifting, and unresolved.
Color plays a central role in my work. I use bold, sometimes electric hues not simply for visual impact, but to suggest the emotional noise of contemporary life—the mix of joy, anxiety, memory, and contradiction that we carry all at once. Stripes, patterns, and translucent layers move across faces and bodies, creating a sense that there is always more happening beneath the surface. Identity, for me, is not fixed; it’s layered, porous, and constantly in motion.
Glass is essential to this way of working. Its transparency, reflectivity, and sensitivity to light allow images to shift as the viewer moves, reinforcing the idea that meaning is never static. I build my images by drawing with finely crushed glass powder, layering and fusing multiple panels so that scenes feel suspended rather than resolved. The process is slow and physical, and that pace matters—it gives me time to sit with the work, to notice small changes, and to let intuition guide decisions.
My portraits begin with traditional drawing and observation, but I allow color and distortion to enter where realism alone feels insufficient. In a time when images can be endlessly perfected, I’m more interested in where accuracy breaks down and emotion becomes visible. The faces in my work are recognizable, but altered—because our internal lives are rarely neutral or balanced. Glass, with its layers and transparency, lets those shifts remain visible rather than hidden.
Michael Janis is a contemporary artist who works primarily in glass, using figurative and narrative forms to explore identity, assimilation, and collective memory. His work bridges studio glass and contemporary art, positioning glass as a conceptual and expressive medium through which social history and psychological experience are examined.
Drawing from layered family histories—as the child of Chinese and Filipino immigrants and the grandson of Greek and German immigrants—Janis’s work reflects questions of belonging, transformation, and cultural inheritance. Trained originally as an architect, he brings a disciplined structural approach to glass, combining material precision with narrative ambiguity and emotionally charged imagery.
After a twenty-year career in architecture in the United States and Australia, Janis returned to the U.S. to focus fully on his artistic practice. In 2005, he became Co-Director of the Washington Glass School in Washington, DC, where he has played a central role in advancing individual artistic inquiry, public art, and community-engaged projects.
Janis has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Florida Art Glass Alliance Emerging Artist Award, the Bay Area Glass Institute Saxe Fellowship, and recognition as a “Rising Star” at Wheaton Arts. His work has been featured in the Corning Museum of Glass New Glass Review, and he received the Mayor’s Arts Award for Excellence in the Arts from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities.
The Fuller Craft Museum mounted a solo exhibition of Janis’s work in 2011, and his work is held in permanent collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Imagine Museum, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the Baker Museum, and the American Glass Museum.
Janis’s practice also includes major public art commissions, notably the design of monumental cast-glass doors for the Library of Congress Adams Building, a front-entry sculpture for Prince George’s County’s Laurel Library, and a community-engaged memorial honoring the enslaved people who built the U.S. Capitol. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2012 and has taught and lectured internationally.
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA
Baker Museum, Artis—Naples, Naples, FL
Museum of American Glass, Wheaton Arts & Cultural Center, Millville, NJ
Barry Art Museum, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA (promised gift)
Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA
Library of Congress, Adams Building, Washington, DC
Bucharest Embassy Art Collection, U.S. Department of State, Bucharest, Romania
DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities Art Collection, Washington, DC
Vanderbilt University Medical Center Art Collection, Nashville, TN
EPA Headquarters Art Collection, Washington, DC
Wilson Building Public Art Collection, Washington, DC
Imagine Museum, St. Petersburg, FL
Selected Exhibitions
2026–2023
2026
Habatat Galleries, Sarasota, FL — 11th Annual Glass Coast Exhibition
2025
DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities — DC Art Now 2025, Washington, DC
Fort Wayne Museum of Art — International Glass 2025, Fort Wayne, IN
Habatat Galleries, Detroit, MI — 52nd International Glass Invitational
Virginia Athenaeum — Eclipse Sculpture Invitational, Alexandria, VA
2024
Alida Anderson Art Projects — Affordable Art Fair NYC, New York, NY
Montpelier Arts Center — Connections and Conversations: Artists of the Washington Glass School, Laurel, MD
DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities — Legacy: Civil Rights at 60, Washington, DC
Habatat Galleries, Detroit, MI — International Glass Invitational
2023
Habatat Galleries — SCOPE Art Miami, Miami, FL
Duncan McClellan Gallery — Dreams & Visions, St. Petersburg, FL
Habatat Galleries, Sarasota, FL — Glass Coast Exhibition
Alida Anderson Art Projects — Affordable Art Fair NYC, New York, NY
Habatat Galleries, Detroit, MI — 51st International Glass Invitational
