Michael Janis

I’m a contemporary artist based in Washington, DC, and I work primarily with glass. My background is in architecture, and that training still shapes how I think about structure, space, and how people move through and experience a work. Over time, glass became my main language—less for its technical challenges and more for its ability to carry light, fragility, and contradiction all at once.

Much of my work focuses on the human figure, often broken into parts or layered in ways that feel slightly unsettled. I’m interested in identity as something fluid rather than fixed, shaped by personal history, culture, and the noise of contemporary life. Color plays a big role in this. I use bold, sometimes electric palettes to suggest emotional intensity and the many overlapping states we carry beneath the surface.

I build my images by drawing with finely crushed glass powder, layering and fusing panels so that scenes feel suspended within the glass. The process is slow and physical, and that pace matters—it gives me time to think, adjust, and let intuition guide the work. As light shifts and viewers move, the images change, reinforcing the idea that meaning is never singular or stable.

My practice includes studio work as well as large-scal...