Julia Schwartz

julia schwartz

Published by Bleicher Galleries BGartdealings.com

trading maps for stars

Since Julia Schwartz’s rapid evolution into abstraction, she has stayed true to her psychoana-lytic process. Schwartz has been shi!ing paint techniques into exciting territories and is at the forefront of psychological exploration in painting. Traveling through this new body of work is another evolutionary shi! for her, a!er her exploration in subject matter and critical acclaim for her exhibit last year, Hollow Sea.

In response to the tragic tsunami in Japan and other personal misfortunes in the artist's life, Schwartz's work, which had been predominantly "gurative at the time, became distinctly more abstracted, breaking into glacier-like #eshy icicles on a 'hollow sea'. In the "nal works from this series, the landscapes broke apart in exploding spiraling twists, only fragments of "gure, time, and space remained, a cathartic epiphany that led to her current works where the subject matter transformed from loss to intimacy.Schwartz cites a section of an Andre Aciman essay as one of the sources of inspiration for her current body of work:

"What... touches us is the radiance we've projected on things, not the things themselves- the envelope, not the letter, the wrapping, not the gi!... $ese intimations travel from the objects and beings around us and eventually reach our senses. But the opposite is also true: we radi-ate "lms of what we have within us and project them on everything we see—which is how we become aware of the world and, ultimately, why we come to love it. Without these "lms, these "ctions, which are both our alibis and the archive of our innermost life, we have no way to connect to or touch anything."-Andre´ Aciman, from ‘Intimacy’

In Trading Maps for Stars, Schwartz conducts a dialog between emotional states of anxiety, worry, and self-consciousness, and excitement, exuberance, and expansiveness. $ere is a tension that exists in her new work between these states, and the title she chose is an expres-sion of this. “I o!en joke about needing maps... "maps" being code for ways to control things that are out of control.... "Stars" I think is code for a kind of exuberant pleasure in paint.”$e use of the impasto technique creates images that are primitive yet powerful. $e relent-less brushstrokes in "Driving into Big Sky" and the conscious layering of paint in "Candy-land," outline both geometric and organic shapes that resemble microorganisms that are impossible to be seen by the naked eye. In each painting, a seemingly unrelated movement is created by the juxtaposition of lines, shapes and colors, a%ecting the painting as a whole. When viewing, "Studio with Lucky Charms" one gets the mysterious yet fascinating feeling like diving underwater. Schwartz's expressive paintings intrigue one's imagination and chal-lenge one to step out of the rational.

mustangs run wild 2012

oil on canvas 36x36 inches

counting 2012

oil on linen 14x11 inches

a nest of robins in her hair 2012


bride2012


your boat, your bed, your piece of pie 2012


broken wings and sad eyes 2012


candyland 2012


dreaming with one eye open 2012


dream of the boardwalk 2012


pillardiamondwaves 2012


green hand 2012


secret life of trees II 2012


secret life of trees I 2012


(best)ice XXVII 2011

oil on canvas16x20 inches

ice XXV (after the visit) 2011


rug, apron, candy 2012



this is the shape of the heart and mind 2011


studio with lucky charms 2011


asphalt blooms2011


studio view2011

oil on linen10x8 inches

narcissus on the rocks2011

oil on canvas24x18 inches

heap2011

oil on linen20x20 inches

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Julia Schwartz