Julia Rommel, Big Soda, 2012, 12 x 11 inches, oil & wax on linen
Julia Rommel was born in Maryland, and now lives and works in Brooklyn. She attempts the near-impossible -- an original and deeply felt approach to monochrome painting -- and arrives at works of such delicate materiality and color as to be utterly disarming. Recently, her process has expanded to removing the canvas from its stretcher and re-stretching it on a slightly larger format to reveal the imprinted edges of the previous dimension, adding a more assertive physicality. Earlier works featured raw linen with the most subtle of interventions.
Here is an excerpt from an artist's statement that accompanied her show at Bureau last year:
"If I am drawn to moody landscapes, why don't I just paint them? I allow myself to do so little. Clean, smooth, spare, cool, and hard. Impossible for a softy like me. But allow any more in and I'm telling you my slow sappy stories. I know better."
Julia Rommel, Skillet, 2012, 12 x 12 inches, oil & wax on linen
Julia Rommel, Dr Unk, 2012, 27 x 26 inches, oil on linen
Julia Rommel, Hobby, 2012, 16 x 10 inches, oil on linen
Julia Rommel, Jasper, 2012, 38 x 38 inches, oil on linen
Julia Rommel, Lazy Bones, 2012, 16 x 11 inches, oil on linen
Julia Rommel, Grandparents Ave, 2010, 9 x 10 inches, oil on linen
Julia Rommel, Simpatico, 2010, 8 x 8 inches, oil on linen
Julia Rommel, installation, Frieze NYC, 2013
Images from the Bureau website.
