John Christian Anderson

John Christian Anderson grew up in a working class neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. At an early age he visited Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers, which was not far from his home. It was an astonishing site as there was nothing like it anywhere else in the neighborhood. Over time these towers represented symbols of pure artistic vision, independence, and the down-to-earth attitude of using whatever materials are available. Later as a young student he traveled and sought out other artists and craftsmen working outside the mainstream. Over the years his work has integrated Indian and Buddhist sand painting, Fluxus objects, Minimalism, Funk Art, Bricolage and Assemblage. For over fifty years he has been incorporating found material and exploring traditional and non-traditional techniques for constructing his sculptures.

Around the age of twelve, Anderson lived with his sister in Culver City. Her house was close to a big movie lot where many popular television shows and Hollywood films were made. With other neighborhood kids he would sneak past guards and play among the "stage-sets" of buildings and western towns that were located next to more modern urban sets. These were facades that looked authentic when watching television at home but he knew that the areas out of the camera's view were constructed crudely using common material. It was a convincing illusion that developed into a lifelong interest in appearances, patterns, and the texture of materials both real and faux. This experience along with the threat of earthquakes, the cultural transience of Southern California, and a feeling best described as living precariously with nature, created a strong desire to make objects expressing a world that seemed ephemeral and out of balance.

Anderson has exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States. These include the Robert Freidus Gallery in New York (solo), the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, the ICA Boston, The DeCordova Museum, The Delaware Center for Contemporary Art (solo). In addition, his work was exhibited at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, Louisiana and three solo exhibitions at the Boston Sculptors Gallery where he was a member until 2022. He has received numerous awards including three individual Artist Resource Trust Grants and a more recent Traveling Scholarship from the Boston Museum School to study counterfeit objects in Paris. His work is included in both public and private collections. In 2019 Anderson was invited by the Fuller Craft Museum to create a sculpture in response to the opioid epidemic that continues to ravage communities both locally and throughout the Northeast. The exhibition entitled ‘Human Impact: Stories From The Opioid Epidemic’, ran from September 29 through May 2020.

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