Julia McLain
Julia McLain, Meltdown, 2012
Julia McLain is a contemporary artist and professional illustrator originally from Denton, Texas. After receiving her Bachelors from The University of Texas, Arlington, McLain began her artistic career as an understudy for Don Ivan Punchantz at his Sketch Pad Studio. She creates paintings with a contemporary pop sensibility, juxtaposing "old world" imagery and color palates, to create works that jump through perceived realities - using anachronism to create paintings in a style she calls "cutism," where she reassembles the difficult and abstract into safe and sweet compositions.
Artist Statement
Artistically, I have always been fascinated by visual anachronisms. Unexpected or out of place objects can illustrate perceptions of time passages, technical advances, philosophy, theology and many other ideas. Juxtapositions can also narrate emotional states, historical events and extra dimensional ideology. For this reason, I often employ anachronisms in my art.
Anachronism in imagery can be a clandestine tool to brainwash, educate or to simply express an inner feeling.
I often approach color the same way as form through these unexpected juxtapositions. For example: using very old-world antique color pallets for one set of objects against another object that is expressed through pure POP art color ranges. This is subconsciously used to introduce a fuller understanding of the perspective I view concerning life and all that is in it. We humans have the capacity to see many more colors in an infinite array but our eyeballs have what is called a "Photopic range," that allows us only to see a fragment of what is really there. I believe at some future time we will see fully. For now, visual tricks (such as anachronism) helps fill in the imaginary gaps in an abstract way that allows each viewer to gain their own personal interpretation as well as what I have intended for them to see.
It is fun to bend laws of nature through visual devices and easily achieved. Picasso often did this through perspective. I love to mix up flat and 3d objects. This can distort such understandings as "cause and effect" creating illusions of reality. Common knowledge from one era changes drastically in another era. The forbidden visual with the accepted can be used to show these philosophical disciplines evolution of acceptance.
Visual mutations can sometimes be prophetic, intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes objects seen for a millennia as mistakes reveal prehistoric events that we did not have the conceptual fabric to comprehend in times past. A perfect example of this would be all the UFO type disc we often find on cave paintings. So whether we attribute the collective spirit of the ages or a personal spirit speaking to us directly… sometimes these visual mixups can be important insight for humanity to take notice of.
I often prefer not to talk specifics about my work as most are deeply personal. Sometimes I use my art as therapy to work through things that span childhood and may be continuing into my present inner child. Most (but not all) of my art is "Cute." That is because I often try to find a visual solution to something that once caused me pain or concern by placing it in a place of comfort or safety.
MY UTMOST VIEW ON ART:
"CUTISM" (anti-cubism) is the most influential art movement of the present century. It is the opposite of "cubism" which abstracts and breaks up matter. "CUTISM" defies the Law of Conservation (where every thing breaks down). "CUTISM" takes broken abstract matter and reassembles it into a tangible, safe composition. This new movement goes beyond the shock value imagery so politically acceptable to the underground art move. That is because today SWEET is considered PERVERSE!
