Julia Samuels

Julia in front of her MFA thesis installation.

Julia was born in Portsmouth, NH and received her BFA from Pratt Institute in 2007. In Brooklyn she participated in building and managing The Gowanus Studio Space and also volunteered during the formative years of 596 Acres, an agency that helps neighbors gain access to vacant land in their communities. She received her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2015.

Immediately after completing her MFA, Julia began Overpass Projects with a vision to bring more artists into the practice of printmaking while maintatining each artist’s individualized way of working. With each artist Julia innovates working processes that simplify and clarify the mysteries of printmaking so artists who specialize in other mediums can work comfortably in print.

A pervasive theme of my portfolio is the conjunction and dissonance between human development and the natural world’s commitment to persevere under the unyielding onslaught of industrialism. Intricacy and beauty is everywhere in the world around us, and I am drawn to compositions that highlight the tragic beauty in aged decay, overconsumption and forgotten wastelands we encounter every day. Power lines, phone cables, and chain-link and barbed wire fences are installed, revised, outdated and forgotten, leaving behind dense webs of steel through which the the natural world is constantly attempting to reclaim its space. I love the challenge of translating these elements into woodcut. Cables and wires silhouetted against a clear sky are elements positively drawn over deep negative space, and in carving I invert this relationship, investing my effort into the areas carved away, the blank spaces. My discipline and care is leaving behind and untouched the intention of the original artwork, that fence, cable, tree or vine that exists in the real world.

You can see more of Julia’s work at her personal site, juliasamuels.com