Dom Johns

Art Exhibition Visual Artist/ Curator

Dominic Johns was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1966. He started in the tile industry at 14; a part time job in a leading tile shop, selling, delivering, laying the product, and learning the trade on the job.
In 1984 he began a Bachelor of Education degree at Melbourne University focussing on History, Literature and Geography, but deferred his studies before completing them, preferring to follow the young Australian male's dream of surfing his way around Australia, financing his travels by tiling.
After returning to Melbourne, Dom completed his degree and ran several businesses specialising in aspects of the tiling industry, such as Victorian Tessellated tiles. More industry experience followed before Dom concentrated on decorative work and then heard the call of Far North Queensland and Cairns in particular, moving to the area permanently in 1992 where he continued to work in commercial and domestic tiling.
In 2002 Dom opened Shardworks, his studio committed to the art of mosaic, and began exhibiting his artworks. Spending considerable time in Cape York and Torres Strait Islander communities, Dom has been working to extend the boundaries of mosaic through Education Projects, writing curriculum for trades based traineeships as well as skills training organisations.
Dom has since completed several public art projects, been nominated several times for the Prime Minister's Awards for Work in the Community, is a member on the Regional Arts Development Board, co-director of Headsup-Arts which represents other artists and had a number of successful solo exhibitions and many group showings. He is father to three beautiful daughters, husband to a patient wife, and has helped educate thousands of students in the wonderful art of mosaic.
Artist Statement
Mosaic is my chosen media and I have spent the past seven years actively engaged in producing work that allows me to inform an audience of the broader scope of this craft.
At university I developed an appreciation of literature and history and this informs on my artwork. It was also here that I was exposed to a broader understanding of image development, such as cultural patterns and sacred geometry. I now often reference stories that are from an age where ceramics, tiling, and mosaics were a revered art form.
In recent times there has been a huge increase in the variety of mosaic product available, and combined with my intimate knowledge of the tiling industry, this has allowed me to take advantage of the potential that these new products bring to my work, and also to my teaching programs. A revival of mosaic, as an art form, has been taking place because of the new tiles available and also, I believe, because of the tactile nature of the medium.
Currently my artwork is being influenced by the mathematical structure of images, breaking the graphics down into a format that works with the most elemental form of the media, a single tile. The contemporary nature of the images, (such as my Super Mario series), allows the tile to dictate the final look of the image, and the imagery because of its resultant pixilation, relates well to those who have been brought up on a diet of computer games and digital graphics.
By introducing contemporary graphics, into what has been traditionally a "craft", I am endeavouring to reach a younger audience brought up on a diet of computer games, as well as making the more modern graphic accessible to older generations. It is a demanding medium which requires perseverance; however, it is also a challenging medium full of rewards when the mix of the age old art, modern materials and contemporary graphics is right.