Statement

I wanted to be a stewardess until age four, then wanted to be an artist. Growing up, there was no distinction between the family quilts and u-kiyo-e prints in our home. An Iowa neighbor’s front yard showcased larger-than-life famous figures and a 20’ American flag, all made out of ears of colored corn. It wasn’t until college that phrases like high art and low art were tossed around, but for me, art making is wide open.

A word in the Japanese language, kehai, describes the feeling that something has just happened or is about to: a footstep, a whiff, a stirring. I attempt to make a lasting image out of kehai -- the fleeting moment. The hardest part of painting is knowing when to stop. America in Underwear and the Smart Phones are completed in a day, Don’t Name Fish After Friends, eleven years. I generally work without models or photographic references because of a fascination with memory; specifically, that which we choose to remember and that which we choose to forget. But the 2011 Smart Phones break several “Julie rules.” Photo references, shot with an iPhone, are used to produce this series examining our screwball relationship with technology. Why, for example, would someone who hates talking on the phone paint phones?

Studio time is divided between narrative paintings and an ongoing ceramics project. The Last Supper plates illustrate nearly 500 final meal requests of US death row inmates. While the plates are quite different than the paintings, both are observations of contemporary society. I am driven to the studio to make some sense of our world. Andy Warhol said the artist of the future will simply point. I paint to point.

Julie Green 2011

Inquires and high res images: greenjulie@mac.com