The birth of my daughter caused a deep trust in my body, on a level I had never experienced before. I relented to an urge to work intuitively. I began using automatic drawing practices and pulling from a more primal space. This way of creating is deeply pleasurable, even erotic. It allows me to be fully aware but not totally in control.
I begin the drawings with a feeling, a memory, or a moment my body has experienced and I want to understand more deeply. As I draw I unearth shapes, lines, colors, and forms and study how they want to fit together. I am thinking about bodily structures, connections, and interactions between micro organisms, cells, organs, or other bodies. In my work and life I am striving to live with reverence for the earth and life and move through the world in a way that acknowledges the sentience of nature.
Julia uses automatic drawing to access shapes and forms that act as a map, cross-section, or proof from her interior world. She channels scientific diagrams, studies from life, and memory of bodily experience while creating the drawings. The work explores and rests upon trusting and listening to the body.
After studying studio art at Colorado College, Julia worked as a fine art collaborative printmaker and studio manager for master printer Susan Oehme at Oehme Graphics in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Her technical training continued in Florence, Italy where she studied classical drawing and painting. Interspersed throughout her artistic career she has worked on various organic farms. Julia lives and works in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with her husband and daughter on an old Christmas tree farm in a cabin they built in the woods. Currently they tend a small herd of sheep, a garden, and work to rehabilitate and protect young forest on the land.
CV
Education
2014-16 Florence Academy of Art, Florence, Italy and Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ
2005-2009 Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO, BA, Studio Art
Exhibitions and Art Fairs
2023 Art on Paper with Oehme Graphics, New York, NY
2023 Baltimore Fine Art Print Fair with Oehme Graphics, Baltimore, MD
2022 Printmaking in Floyd, Floyd Center of the Arts, Floyd, VA
2019 GIFC Velvet Ropes, Shrine NYC and Sargent Daughters, New York, NY
2019 New River Art Biennial, Moss Center for the Arts, Blacksburg, VA
2019 New Voices, Floyd Center of the Arts, Floyd, VA
2018 Featured Artist, The Market Gallery, Roanoke, VA
2017 Taubman Museum Sidewalk Art Show, Roanoke, VA
2013 Behind the Scene: Oehme Graphics, Art Depot, Steamboat Springs, CO
2012 Make Studio Collective Exhibit, Make Studio Gallery and Co-op, Steamboat Springs, CO
2011 In the Brush, Winter Group Show- K. Saari Gallery, Steamboat Springs, CO
2009 Internal Intricacies, Cossit Hall, Colorado Springs, CO
Publications
Milk Art Journal, June 2023, Vol.2, Body & Belonging, Edited by Katherine October Matthews
Awards
2017 Best in Mixed Media Award- Taubman Museum Sidewalk Art Show- Roanoke, VA
2013 The Presidential Scholarship Fund Award- Anderson Ranch, Snowmass, CO
Related Experience
2018 Market Gallery Artist, Roanoke, VA
2012 Make Studio Gallery Co-op Artist, Steamboat Springs, CO
2010-13 Oehme Graphics, Intaglio printmaker and studio manager, Steamboat Springs, CO
2009 Riverhouse Editions, Printmaking intern, Steamboat Springs, CO
Collections
Robin Peake Stuart Collection, Chatham Hall, Chatham, VA
Oehme Graphics Permanent Collection, Steamboat Springs, CO