Jonah Fleeger is a ceramic artist originally from Northwest Indiana. Fleeger attended a small boarding school called Verde Valley School, in Sedona, Arizona, which is where his love for ceramics first started. In 2013, he received his BFA in ceramics from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since then he has completed post-baccalaureate programs at The University of Colorado Boulder and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. In 2019, Fleeger received his MFA in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. Fleeger was a resident artist at the Morean Center for Clay in Florida and a long-term resident artist at Cobb Mountain Art & Ecology Project in California. Currently, he is teaching at the Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona.
My current ceramic work has taken two paths. One path revolves around the Jewish Diaspora and the anti-semitic experiences I’ve tolerated throughout my life. The other focuses on form and design; how objects relate to each other, the viewer and the space they inhabit. These two paths intertwine and diverge in order to create installations and objects that reflect my reality and attend to ideas of identity, assimilation, place and connection with others.
My media—compressed earth, brick walls, ancient and modern pottery—highlights the ‘other’ to author a stylized identity; creating moments of reflection and a sense of belonging. I aim to create objects that investigate and call attention to the connections between self, place, history and contemporary culture. As an artist, I create work that revisits my reality, hoping to unburden myself and call the viewers attention to the familiar in an authentic way.
