Julia Norton

About

American b. 1985   —   Julia Norton (b. New York City, 1985) holds an MFA from SUNY Purchase and an Ed.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has exhibited at Lyles & King (NYC), Albada Jelgersma Gallery (Amsterdam, NL), The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), and Dread Lounge (Los Angeles, CA) and has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, The Wassaic Project, Cooper Union, Mass MoCA, and Vermont Studio Center. She has worked as a museum educator and arts educator at New Museum, Pioneer Works, Swiss Institute, Abrons Art Center, and Dia:Beacon. Norton paints with natural pigments and dyes, which she forages for and collects from around the world. Both an artist and a researcher, Norton explores how to use these colors while being mindful of their respective histories and where they come from. These materials, such as minerals and ochres, plants like indigo and goldenrod, and animals like cochineal, are alive on paper, and are as important to the work as what they portray. Her images bring the inanimate object and the natural world together in living color, and create visual stories that speak to the human experience. Representations of windows, doors, ropes, and fingers, stand for an attempt to bridge worlds and form connections. Connections within ourselves, with others, with nature, and the world around us; dead or alive. Themes such as ghosts, memory, trauma, and dreams work their way into the imagery which is both evocative and unapologetically sentimental in its reference to the desire and need for human relationships.