Sidewalk Meditations from Powelton Village by Jennifer Johnson

KieranTimberlake’s Bottling House is pleased to present Sidewalk Meditations from Powelton Village, an exhibition featuring the ceramic works by Philadelphia-based sculptor Jennifer Johnson.  

Jennifer Johnson’s Sidewalk Meditations follows a decade of site-specific installations around Philadelphia, each shaped by extensive research into the physical and cultural history of a specific place over time. In 2022, the artist arrived at a question: Why not focus on where I live, the place I know best? Starting with her own house and block, Johnson embarked on a deep dive exploring and documenting her neighborhood, a process that has become a generative and ongoing place of discovery.

At its core, Johnson’s work is about human experiences in a place over time, and how their meaning shifts. She’s interested in how architecture reveals lived experiences, and the feeling of discontinuity that arises between a “before” and an “after”—often a nebulous zone. For Johnson, the life cycle of a building becomes a metaphor for aging and human lifetime; there’s nostalgia and longing for something lost or forgotten.

While steeped in research and in-depth knowledge of her chosen place, the artist emphasizes the importance of working in a state of “not-knowing” and exploration—always concerned with the next question, trying for something unfamiliar that doesn’t make sense at first. Clay, tile, and mortar—materials used to create brick and stone buildings—lend the work a self-reflexivity, while Johnson’s rich use of color infuses her arrangements with emotion. Relying on an unsteady hand to cut, paint and assemble the work, the final product displays its flaws to highlight the human touch. It is, in the artist’s words, a way of “knowing a place by hand.”

The exhibition’s title references Descartes and his Meditations in several ways. Written in the 1600s, the essays are concerned with human knowledge and its grounding inside the human mind. While Johnson’s work—”ironically,” notes the artist—is profoundly grounded in the physical world, her observations resonate: What can we know about a building that we only see from the outside? This boundary forms the perspective for the works on display: A view from the sidewalk leads to a residential façade, capturing the elements of separation between—maybe a fence and gate, stoop, or porch. The mosaics, like little stories or descriptions, are built up out of an accumulation of specific details—a series of meditations—to form intimate portraits of the neighborhood.

About Jennifer Johnson

Jennifer Johnson is a Philadelphia-based sculptor working in ceramics, fiber, electronics, video, and performance. Jennifer has been awarded artist residencies at Glenn Foerd on the Delaware (2019-2020), the Vermont Studio Center (2019), and the International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark (2017). From 2020-21, she served as a NewCourtland Fellow in partnership with the Center for Emerging Visual Arts (CFEVA).  Her background includes a broad set of professional experiences. Jennifer is the co-founder of Current Designs, Inc., a high-tech company that produces computer response devices for neuroscientists. She also served as an editor for several journals including the American Economic Review, a fact-checker at the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s publication department, and a cook at the Commissary Restaurant in Philadelphia and Grendel’s Lair in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jennifer holds an MFA from Tyler School of Art in Ceramics and a BA in Philosophy from Swarthmore College.