Julia Helen Rice, Painter: In Session at Abode Gallery
Join Julia as she demonstrates artistry in oil and acrylic. Best known for her large scale pieces, Julia will be demonstrating and giving us a glimpse of other styles that in which she works.
"I was raised in Eau Claire, WI. At 18 I left the Midwest to attend Bates College in Lewiston, ME. I spent my junior year abroad in Florence, Italy. For nine months I studied Italian, art history, and was apprenticed to Massimo Giannoni. In 2007 I received a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art; for my thesis I painted sixteen portraits of the other art majors who were graduating with me. After school I moved to New York City for a year but found the art world vastly overwhelming and cutthroat. In the fall of 2008 I moved back to Wisconsin to live cheaply and focus on making art.
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| From 16 Portraits by Julia Helen Rice |
"My work is about place, though not necessarily an actual, physical place but that can be part of the meaning. My paintings are more about internal, intimate places within me that get entangled in my physical surroundings. I make paintings to try to understand and express that entwining.
"The landscapes are tangible, real places that define and structure my existence. They provide an order that I couldn’t otherwise establish for myself and are chosen mainly from the shock of how awesome the sky is. I wanted to talk about what to me is the most necessary of landscapes: the landscape of space. I have been continually surprised at how, even in unlikely places, there are still pockets of space left and that finding them has less to do with knowing of their existence then in being aware of their possibility. To me the awareness of openness creates innumerable possibilities; to me space allows multiple combinations of reality to be present at once."
