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I grew up drawing and reading—in a visual environment dominated by comic books, black-and-white Hollywood movies, and garish religious art—so decided to become a writer. Since then I have made a series of shifts: from Adelaide, Australia, to New York City, earning a doctorate in literature from Columbia University; from literature to queer studies, within which I write and teach at Sarah Lawrence College; and from writing to making art.
I now have a wider frame of aesthetic reference, from the history of Japanese prints, Chinese scrolls, and Islamic textiles and ceramics, to the twentieth century of Malevich and Klee, Anni and Josef Albers, Agnes Martin, Lygia Pape, and Bridget Riley. In my twenty-first century practice I work by hand (painting and printing), in two dimensions and three, on paper (French sheets, Japanese rolls, machine-made in America) and wood, and through aggregation (of methods, blocks, shapes, and sheets). I often multiply, but rarely duplicate. Always, I move colors through geometries, and colors and geometries through space. Everything begins with a drawing.
The devil is in the details, they say. But whose devil, and which details?
Email Artist Julie Lee Abraham at julielee@jlabraham.art
Please view the Artist’s Website at jlabraham.art