Press Release
- Exhibition: Morphogenesis
- Showing: January 10th 2019 - February 16th 2019
Space Gallery is pleased to present our annual figurative exhibition featuring the work of emerging artist Julia Sanders. Blurring the lines between realism and abstraction, Sanders highlights the struggle separating the self and contemporary culture. “Morphogenesis refers to the innate desire for entity and environment to become one,” which can be seen in the swirling and twisting of her paint brush. Challenging the static historical portrayal of the female figure, Sanders also explores themes of fertility and dissolution, both visually and metaphorically as her figures simultaneously dissolve and take shape.
Artist Statement
“This project searches for a way of disengaging the psychological autopilot of the viewer as they encounter an image at once recognizable yet vaguely uncanny. We begin with the image of the oft-reiterated female form acting both as autobiographical narrative and as an historically recognized art subject. By bridging abstraction and figuration, the works speak to the contemporary moment—where culture has taken increasingly towards collaging all the artifacts of the past like a dj to spawn new frontier.
We find that our current collective identity is defined not simply by what it is, but by what borders it has defended in an attempt to exclaim what it is not. These demarcations are being illuminated in contemporary society in the hopes, of some, that they be reintegrated and ultimately eliminated. In this way, the challenging commingling of subtly dark or abject visual themes with vivid, phosphorescent color, evident in the works suggests a new vocabulary hinging on the coming together of disparate identities. There is as much indication of fertility in the subject as there is a sense of decomposition, both visually and metaphorically. Therefore, the energy in the works defy stasis and entropy and encourages excitation and organic symbiosis. We begin with two points that hopefully fall in love with each other. They twist and create disruptions, or ripples, like sound waves in a vacuum, increasing flexibility and dislodging rigidity in their midst. Here, the theme Morphogenesis refers to the innate desire for entity and environment to become one.
Rather than presenting the iconic feminine figure in a frozen portrayal, this project acts more like a system of visual imagery. The system is meant for continuations rather than endings, and is therefore expressed serially and repetitively. The movement from piece to piece is meant to be subtle in contrast to the slightly bedazzling nature of the pieces. In this way, the pieces are meant to encourage a transitioning towards the other side of a historically ‘over-rendered’ argument, to a new vocabulary that the viewer may know is there, but doesn’t yet know how to engage.”
