Julie S Graham: Unexpected Places

Wherever Julie Graham went, locally or internationally in her travels she saw unexpected juxtapositions between spaces and things, nature and the man-made each trying to fit together in odd combinations and special configurations. She had her eye on oddities, strange places and the leftover cultures that were behind walls of memories of what had been. She built her work step by step like an architect piecing together a structure in relief, in painting or as a sculpture.

Originally from Elmira NY, Julie lived and showed her work in Boston for most of her life. She participated in the Boston art community on many levels, as an educator and a practicing artist. Julie was on the painting faculty at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts since 1991. She also led a critique group at the Maud Morgan Arts Center. She served on the board of the Brookline Center for the Arts, was on the jury of Cambridge Public Arts Commission and was the Visual Arts Editor of the Harvard Review.

In 1988 she joined the Portia Harcus Gallery followed by solo shows at Chase Gallery, Victoria Munroe Fine Art and in 2013 she joined Kingston Gallery. (ask Mary some of Julie's contributions as a member) At Kingston Julie was an active member… Last year Julie was the recipient of the Berliner Award from the Brookline Arts Center in recognition of her contributions to art.

Trained as a painter, Julie's practice also incorporated photography, a medium which she used to explore the geometry that architecture imposes on nature. "My inspiration often springs from "the other side of the tracks"—urban industrial areas, abandoned buildings, vernacular architecture, minimalist spaces and clustered housing in foreign lands (big boxes in some cases, shanty towns, in others). Such places and structures are ordinarily overlooked and hidden, but I seek them out. I'm drawn to simple forms and humble materials, upon which time, nature and humans have made a complexity of marks. These marks are embedded in and imposed on walls that carry the history of our time. The contrast between sleek and decaying forms addresses the passage of time. "