John Boehme

Artist and Educator (Performance Art, Ceramics and Sculpture)

John G. Boehme grew up in La Jolla, California and attended Villanova Preparatory School in Ojai Valley graduating from Army Navy Academy in Carlsbad, California. He later immigrated to Victoria and received a Diploma in Visual Arts at Camosun College, a BFA at Emily Carr University of Art & Design as Valedictorian. John received his MFA at The University of Victoria. John G. Boehme is a practicing artist and educator. John continues to have exhibitions, screenings and participate in festivals across Canada, Australia, the Americas, United Kingdom, Europe and China. With pending events and exhibitions planned for Ontario and Internationally in Essen, Germany Prague, Czech Republic and Kyiv, Ukraine. John is the father of three Ciel Arbour-Boehme a Brentwood Alumni 2015, John Truly Boehme and Current Brentonian Beauregard Boehme. As an Educator John has taught at Emily Carr University of Art & Design, The University of Victoria, Victoria College of Art, Brentwood College School and is currently a continuing faculty of the Visual Arts Department at Camosun College. Teaching Performance Art, Ceramics and Sculpture.

Artist Statement:

What interests me is the ongoing reformulation of a set of key interests. These interests are drawn from my observations of Western society’s less considered compulsions. Exploring the performance of gender, specifically masculinity, the valorization of labour, the pursuit of leisure, and the marshalling of amity. I explore language and paralanguage, that is, both the spoken and gestural aspects of human communication.

Live artwork presents a direct relationship with material, with action and process, with human interaction, as I understand it. Physical involvement is the most embodied way in which to create meaning. Through durational works both the artist and the audience gain access to the experience uniquely available through such commitment. This is of course the archetypal modality of ‘performance art’, an experience that unfolds through an extended period of time. Nothing can replace that learning, that specific duration of being. Although there is no alternative to the durational aspect of performance per se, I remain interested in the question of representation of performance. The very clear and obvious problem of making the ephemeral available to a larger audience at a different time. Using video to “reconstruct” an event makes publication and discourse possible. Despite its material concerns I believe that art is rendered ultimately in the social domain.

With regard to multi-disciplinary works, I prefer the alternative term “trans-disciplinary”, as it refers to integration between media, as opposed to, say, a sequential use of different forms. For instance, I employ performance, video, audio and objects simultaneously in a number of my pieces. I am not constrained to any particular mode; rather, I utilize integrated approaches within my practice.

www.finearts.uvic.ca/~jgboehme/