Julie Alexander

ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings and drawings are straight forward material layerings. They are horizontal and vertical lines, scrubbings and movements. My process is full of intention – I appy, I scrape and erase, I make a statement and negate it.

We tell ourselves stories all the time. Paintings and drawings are one of the ways we tell those stories. The surface of the canvas is the location where we compress, layer, negate, retell and seek to understand our stories. It is our theoretical Babel. The sides of the canvas are the transition to real space, to the wall and the room where you stand.

A seminal image for me, buried in my childhood, is one that never existed. It contains a weathered fence, a fence post, unkempt grasses, dankness, discarded and rusted bits of past ideas but also sunshine and wild freshness. There is so much for me in that image ranging from the personal to the political: my tendency to solitude, my need to connect to a landscape, a distrust of suburbia as a way to organize ourselves, a desire to bridge the constructed gap between humans and nature, excrement and Ajax.

But I am a walking contradiction waiting for redemption – that sweet spot between two halves of a dichotomy where this is in conjunction with that. I am sparkling cannon fodder. I think about so much when I paint and I think about nothing at all.

The edges are important and the middle is.

RESUME

EDUCATION
2005	Artist Trust EDGE program
1981	BFA, University of Washington
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2009	Catherine Person Gallery, Seattle, Washington. Two Person Show
	“5280”, Columbia City Gallery, Seattle, Washington. Group Show, Jim McDonald, Curator
	“High Line”, Catherine Person Gallery, Seattle, Washington. Drawing Survey
2008	Davidson Contemporary, Seattle, Washington, Works on Paper
	“Zero”, Columbia City Gallery, Seattle, Washington. Juried Show
2006	Alchemy Gallery, Seattle, Washington, Solo Show
	“The Water Show,” Metropolis Gallery, Bremerton, Washington, Group Show
	“Defining Freedom,” Eastern Washington University, Cheney, Washington. Juried Show
	“15 After the Edge”, Works Gallery, Bellingham, Washington. Group Show
2005	Chase Gallery, Spokane, Washington. Juried Show
2003	Artemis Gallery, Seattle, Washington. Three Person Show
2000	Oculus Gallery, Seattle, Washington, Works on Paper. Solo Show
	Boomtown Café, Seattle, Washington. Solo Show
	Oculus Gallery, Seattle, Washington. Two Person Show
1999	Liner, H2K design, Seattle, Washington. Three Person Show
	Pacific Northwest Annual, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington. Juried by Jon Tupper.
	Arts West, Seattle, Washington. Two Person Show
1998	7th Annual Juried Show, Art Institute and Gallery, Salisbury, Maryland, Dr. David Scott Juror. 2nd Place Award.
1994	“Caw Crowed the Corbie”, Espresso Roma, Seattle, Washington. Solo Show
	“The Woven Proxy”, Italia Café and Gallery, Seattle, Washington. Solo Show
1992	International Women’s Day, environmental installations on the grounds of Volunteer Park, Seattle, Washington. Sponsored by Lilith’s Revenge.
1991	“Belltown Inside /Out,” a group show of current and past Belltown artists, Seattle, Washington.
	“Homesweet,” a collaborative, interactive installation on housing and homelessness within “Libratory” which encompassed a collection of interactive projects that stemmed from social issues. Bumbershoot, Seattle, Washington. Helen Slade, Curator.
	”Earthly Delights,” installations conceived from goods and services available at Bellevue Square. Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington. Helen Slade, Curator.
1989	“Civilization,” a project sponsored by 911 and located within Belltown, Seattle, Washington. Helen Slade, Curator.
	“1989 Northwest Annual,” Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, Washington. Leon Golub and Nancy Spero, Jurors

AWARDS and GRANTS
Artist Trust Fellowship 2006
King County 2004 Purchase Award
Ruth Chenven Foundation
2nd Place, Art Institute and Gallery, Salisbury, Maryland, Dr. David Scott Juror

COLLECTIONS
KC Portable Works
Dr. Gene and Lois Graham
Edie Adams
Bennet Krohn
Neiman Marcus