JULIA WESTERBEKE
Artist Statement
In paper works and drawing-based installations, I create abstract terrains that exist somewhere between the organic and curiously alien, the familiar and the foreign.
Taking inspiration from science fiction and biological forms, I build intricate surfaces that pay homage to the complexities of organic life as well as its ceaseless regeneration, flux and decay. Ultimately the work speaks to our warped yet loving relationship with nature.
I am interested in abstraction as a vehicle for the imagination and memory. It allows for an indeterminacy of form that activates the viewer, so that even the most pared-down and unfamiliar can still connect by way of subtle visual references. In Gaston Bachelard’s writings on the oneiric and “psychic weight,” he argues that certain imagery, shapes and objects have an immediate intimacy, causing one to delve into personal memory.
Past Solo Exhibitions:
Morphology, 2014
Past Group Exhibitions:
Echoes, 2015
40/40 A Doubled Vision, 2013