Julie Blackmon
Laying Out
2015

About the Item

Blackmons's images offer fantastic and surreal commentary on contemporary American family life while referencing a 19th Century Flemish aesthetic. Peggy's Beauty Shop is an outstanding tableaux, indicative of Blackmon's signature style, combining narrative and a sly sense of humor. – The Dutch proverb "a Jan Steen household" originated in the 17th century and is used today to refer to a home in disarray, full of rowdy children and boisterous family gatherings. The paintings of Steen, along with those of other Dutch and Flemish genre painters, helped inspire this body of work. I am the oldest of nine children and now the mother of three. As Steen’s personal narratives of family life depicted nearly 400 yrs. ago, the conflation of art and life is an area I have explored in photographing the everyday life of my family and the lives of my sisters and their families at home. These images are both fictional and auto-biographical, and reflect not only our lives today and as children growing up in a large family, but also move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives, both imagined and real. The stress, the chaos, and the need to simultaneously escape and connect are issues that I investigate in my work…. As an artist and as a mother, I believe life’s most poignant moments come from the ability to fuse fantasy and reality: to see the mythic amidst the chaos. –Julie Blackmon

Creator:
Julie Blackmon (1966, American)
Creation Year:
2015
Dimensions:
Height: 22 in (55.88 cm)Width: 29 in (73.66 cm)
Medium:
Archival Pigment
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
21st Century
Framing:
Framing Options Available
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Sante Fe, NM
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU1342695232
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