Johnathon Schmuck's glass work is informed by a background in the Earth Sciences - “It was my geological studies which initially opened me up to the visual realm. I was so fascinated by the retinal qualities of what I was seeing in the field, on the maps and cross sections, and under the microscope, that I eventually started to pursue artmaking, which later on led me to glass”. Using a variety of techniques, in particular the development of blowing fused glass, Johnathon works with the same forces and elements that have shaped our planet - heat, pressure, stone, water, air. The layers of glass look like deposited strata, suggesting the folding, faulting, weathering and compression of the earth, while the colours mimic the qualities of geological maps.

Johnathon Schmuck was born in California in 1963 and completed his Bachelor of Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1986. He began working with glass in 1989 and has studied this in the USA at Pilchuck Glass School, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass and the Rochester Institute of Technology before coming to Australia. He lived in Canberra in 1998 and 1999 when he came to the Canberra School of Art on a Fulbright Scholarship to undertake a Masters degree. Since returning to the States, he has maintained a strong tie with the Canberra glass community, spending time here whenever he can. Johnathon has received numerous awards, including the Fulbright Scholarship (the first to be undertaken at the Canberra School of Art), and has exhibited in the USA, Italy, Japan and Australia.