Justin Novak

Justin Novak’s raku-fired figurative sculpture navigates a fine line between the tasteful and the grotesque. His work subverts the historical genre of the figurine by using physical wounds such as bruises and lacerations to serve as metaphors for injury to self-esteem and other psychological harm.

Novak has been exhibited at University of Central Arkansas, Pacini Lubel Gallery (WA), Nancy Margolis Gallery (NY), John Elder Gallery (NY), Gimmerhus Musuem (Denmark), Clay Studio (PA), Synchronicity Space (NY), Dorsky Gallery (NY), Turman Larison Contemporary (MT), International Ceramic Research Center (Denmark), Taipei County Yingge Museum (Taiwan), and Nelson Fine Arts Center (AZ), among others. Novak has been a visiting guest artist at several institutions including the Parsons School of Design, Ohio State University, and Rhode Island School of Design. He has won several awards and grants, among them an Oregon Arts Commission Visual Arts Fellowship, a Purchase Award from the NCECA Clay National, and a Society of Publications Designer Award.  He was an artist-in-residence at the International Ceramic Center (Denmark), Watershed Center (ME), and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center’s Arts/Industry hosted at Kohler Co.

His work has been reviewed in Ceramic Art Monthly, Ceramics: Art & Perception Magazine, Kerameiki Techni Magazine, American Ceramics Magazine, and The New York Times, among others.

Novak’s work is in the collection of Mint Museum (NC), Everson Museum (NY), Grimmerhus Museum (Denmark), Taipei County Yingge Museum of Art, Museum of Applied Art (Czech Republic), and Walbrzych Museum (Poland), among others.

Novak received a BFA in communications design from the Pratt Institute, New York, and an MFA from the State University of New York, New Paltz. He is currently a professor of ceramics at the University of Oregon, Eugene.