John Cizmar

John Cizmar has had an active art practice of over 20 years. His work has been exhibited in a variety of venues and portfolios including Viridian Artists in Chelsea, Tibet House in NYC, and the Wustum Museum of Fine Arts in Racine Wisconsin. In 2016, John’s prints were published in the Mid-American Print Council journal titled “Print Social Justice, Past, Present, and Future.”
John earned his MFA in Printmaking from Ohio University in 2005 and a BFA in Printmaking from Bradley University in 2000. John was raised on the south side of Chicago, where he also makes his home and works as a User Experience (UX) lead for a technology consulting firm. John’s work is included in both juried and invitational exhibitions nationally and internationally with prints featured in many collections including Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum in Chengdu, China, the Janet Turner Print Museum in Chico, California, and the collection of Connie S P Chen in New York.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I am enamored with the visual persistence of imagery after a stimulus for the imagery is removed. It is within these afterimages that I explore concepts of violence, entertainment, and their entanglement in our everyday lives. I do not feel that I ever start with a truly ‘blank slate’ but rather start my work through a process of documenting my reactions and processing of my environment. Like a DJ I am searching for “beats” that resonate.
My work is open. I do not claim to judge my source material, nor do I seek to be vulgar or somehow clever. Rather, I attempt to present compositions that openly channel my influences from Stanley William Hayter, Mauricio Lasansky, and Agnes Martin. I want to create visual rhythms that encourage the viewer to consider the beauty in the stimuli we all encounter in our daily lives and how it persists.