RESUME
Julie B Montgomery
BORN 1970, Bremen, Germany
EDUCATION
The London Institute, Chelsea College of Art and Design, 2001
Sonoma State University B.A. Drawing, magna cum laude, 1997
Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge, UK, 1996
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010 Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2010 Vault Gallery, Carpinteria, California
2008 Hyde Street Gallery, San Francisco, California
2006 Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
2004 Espacio S/N, El Bruc, Barcelona, Spain
2004 Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2010 Caruso Woods, Santa Barbara, California
2010 The Arts Center, Carpinteria, California
2009 "2009 Juried Exhibition", Sylvia White Gallery, Ventura, California
2008 Hyde Street Gallery, San Francisco, California
2006 “Painting in the South of France,” Live Worms Gallery, San Francisco, California
2006 “Landscape:A Modern Interpretation,” California Modern Gallery, SF, California
2005 “20/20,” Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
2005 “Open Studios Exhibition,” SomARTS, San Francisco, California
2005 “Introductions,” CFA Gallery, San Anselmo, California
2005 “May/Be”,Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
2004 “Exposed,” Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
2004 “L’Exposition des Artists,” L’Abbaye de Caunes Minervois, France
2004 “The Figure in Art,” CFA Gallery, San Anselmo, California
2004 “Art Walk,” Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, California
2004 “The New and the Known,” CFA Gallery, San Anselmo, California
PRESS, PUBLICATIONS & TELEVISION
Santa Barbara News Press
Santa Barbara News Press LINK
Santa Barbara Magazine
Santa Barbara Magazine LINK
Venata Magazine
Venata Magazine LINK
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, California Home and Design, SF Magazine, Marin Magazine, The Marin Independent Journal, Midi-Libre, Le Depeche, L’Independent, Sonoma Valley Style, from Rizzoli Press
SELECTED PRIVATE/PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Kaiser Permanente
Mr. Daniel Patterson’s restaurant Coi, SF
Mr. Tim Bjorn, Denmark
Ms. Karin Dobbin, New York
Mr. Moche Tabibnia, Milan
Masia Can Serrat, El Bruc, Barcelona
Ms. Melissa Kurchen, London
Mr. Piers Tallala, London
Mr. Chad Hayek, Switzerland
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE & OTHER PROGRAMS
2009 White Sparrow Artist in Residence, Boise, Idaho
2007 California Tropics, Carpinteria, California
2005 Yosemite Renaissance, Yosemite, California
2004 Can Serrat, El Bruc, Barcelona, Spain,
2004 Berges, Caunes Minervois, France
BORN 1970, Bremen, Germany
EDUCATION
The London Institute, Chelsea College of Art and Design, 2001
Sonoma State University B.A. Drawing, magna cum laude, 1997
Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge, UK, 1996
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010 Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2010 Vault Gallery, Carpinteria, California
2008 Hyde Street Gallery, San Francisco, California
2006 Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
2004 Espacio S/N, El Bruc, Barcelona, Spain
2004 Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2010 Caruso Woods, Santa Barbara, California
2010 The Arts Center, Carpinteria, California
2009 "2009 Juried Exhibition", Sylvia White Gallery, Ventura, California
2008 Hyde Street Gallery, San Francisco, California
2006 “Painting in the South of France,” Live Worms Gallery, San Francisco, California
2006 “Landscape:A Modern Interpretation,” California Modern Gallery, SF, California
2005 “20/20,” Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
2005 “Open Studios Exhibition,” SomARTS, San Francisco, California
2005 “Introductions,” CFA Gallery, San Anselmo, California
2005 “May/Be”,Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
2004 “Exposed,” Belcher Gallery, San Francisco, California
2004 “L’Exposition des Artists,” L’Abbaye de Caunes Minervois, France
2004 “The Figure in Art,” CFA Gallery, San Anselmo, California
2004 “Art Walk,” Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, California
2004 “The New and the Known,” CFA Gallery, San Anselmo, California
PRESS, PUBLICATIONS & TELEVISION
Santa Barbara News Press
Santa Barbara News Press LINK
Santa Barbara Magazine
Santa Barbara Magazine LINK
Venata Magazine
Venata Magazine LINK
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, California Home and Design, SF Magazine, Marin Magazine, The Marin Independent Journal, Midi-Libre, Le Depeche, L’Independent, Sonoma Valley Style, from Rizzoli Press
SELECTED PRIVATE/PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Kaiser Permanente
Mr. Daniel Patterson’s restaurant Coi, SF
Mr. Tim Bjorn, Denmark
Ms. Karin Dobbin, New York
Mr. Moche Tabibnia, Milan
Masia Can Serrat, El Bruc, Barcelona
Ms. Melissa Kurchen, London
Mr. Piers Tallala, London
Mr. Chad Hayek, Switzerland
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE & OTHER PROGRAMS
2009 White Sparrow Artist in Residence, Boise, Idaho
2007 California Tropics, Carpinteria, California
2005 Yosemite Renaissance, Yosemite, California
2004 Can Serrat, El Bruc, Barcelona, Spain,
2004 Berges, Caunes Minervois, France
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Traces of the Ineffable: New Paintings by Julie Montgomery
"The touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the familiar, making it break out into ineffable music…The trees, the stars, and the blue hills ache with a meaning which can never be uttered in words."
Rabindranath Tagore
"Julie Montgomery creates elegant images of trees and sky and sea that seem to shimmer beneath her meditative gaze. Then she inscribes gentle, elusive texts over them, whispered phrases of human presence responding to the landscape. Erased, obscured, and evocative, the words comprise painterly palimpsests; viewers are compelled to fill the ellipses in order to construct meaning.
However rubbed, washed, and scraped, the images in these paintings refuse to disappear--just as nature resists all of our insensate attempts to obliterate her. Instead, Montgomery’s ethereal forms emerge as diffused veils of jewel-like color. Adumbral jade green, lusty garnet red, or regal jasper brown, they recall the treasures hidden deep within the planet’s core and seem to imply that what we see here above the horizon is merely an emanation of the earth’s interior light.
Critic Arthur C. Danto argues that what makes something art is its use of rhetorical (and generally metaphorical) ellipsis. Viewers participate in the co-creation of the artwork by filling in the gaps generated by such ellipses. If everything is given—if the landscape is reproduced in painstaking scientific detail—it is not art for Danto. Nor is it art for Montgomery, who presents but does not describe, implies but refuses to insist. Subtle and suggestive, her hazy curtains of trees and hills and sky coruscate under the barely perceived calligraphy.
Encountering Montgomery’s paintings is like staring out across the fog-covered Pacific and seeing the Channel Islands revealed as the ocean mist lifts on a sunny Santa Barbara day. Gazing westward, we know the islands are there, even when they are obscured by haze. Contemplating Montgomery’s art, we know the poetry is there, but the elegant erasures and ellipses force us to look further, to look deeper, to look within, in order to perceive the shifting strata of meaning.
Tagore’s lines form a fitting parallel for the ineffable nature of Montgomery’s paintings: “The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.”
Betty Ann Brown, Ph.D., Art Critic
December 2009
"The paintings of Julie Montgomery capture the landscape of elsewhere. Through veils of color, forms are built, but never fully defined. Light permeates, but remains ephemeral. It is as if one is looking at a reflection that could be erased were a wind to come along.
Painting for Julie B. Montgomery is as much a reductive process as it is additive. Thin washes are applied and subsequently scrubbed away to reveal figures and places. What remains recalls the work of Helen Frankenthaler, the Impressionists and Chinese landscape paintings yet reflects the artist's singular style and process. True to her nature, Julie Montgomery explores spirituality and beauty while creating a space for one to reflect on where real life lies."
Andrea P. Sparrow, White Sparrow Artist in Residence Director, Artist
"The magic in Julie Montgomery's paintings is like that of poetry. Her subtle, warm palette of layers added and removed from the canvas, have a power that is felt long before any literal information is taken in. They bring to mind something Jorge Luis Borges said about poetry, "I know for a fact that we FEEL the beauty of a poem long before we even begin to think of a meaning." These paintings unveil themselves slowly, akin to the work of JMW Turner where the eyes have to adjust before all the subtle detail can be taken in."
Donna Seager, Gallerist
"The touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the familiar, making it break out into ineffable music…The trees, the stars, and the blue hills ache with a meaning which can never be uttered in words."
Rabindranath Tagore
"Julie Montgomery creates elegant images of trees and sky and sea that seem to shimmer beneath her meditative gaze. Then she inscribes gentle, elusive texts over them, whispered phrases of human presence responding to the landscape. Erased, obscured, and evocative, the words comprise painterly palimpsests; viewers are compelled to fill the ellipses in order to construct meaning.
However rubbed, washed, and scraped, the images in these paintings refuse to disappear--just as nature resists all of our insensate attempts to obliterate her. Instead, Montgomery’s ethereal forms emerge as diffused veils of jewel-like color. Adumbral jade green, lusty garnet red, or regal jasper brown, they recall the treasures hidden deep within the planet’s core and seem to imply that what we see here above the horizon is merely an emanation of the earth’s interior light.
Critic Arthur C. Danto argues that what makes something art is its use of rhetorical (and generally metaphorical) ellipsis. Viewers participate in the co-creation of the artwork by filling in the gaps generated by such ellipses. If everything is given—if the landscape is reproduced in painstaking scientific detail—it is not art for Danto. Nor is it art for Montgomery, who presents but does not describe, implies but refuses to insist. Subtle and suggestive, her hazy curtains of trees and hills and sky coruscate under the barely perceived calligraphy.
Encountering Montgomery’s paintings is like staring out across the fog-covered Pacific and seeing the Channel Islands revealed as the ocean mist lifts on a sunny Santa Barbara day. Gazing westward, we know the islands are there, even when they are obscured by haze. Contemplating Montgomery’s art, we know the poetry is there, but the elegant erasures and ellipses force us to look further, to look deeper, to look within, in order to perceive the shifting strata of meaning.
Tagore’s lines form a fitting parallel for the ineffable nature of Montgomery’s paintings: “The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.”
Betty Ann Brown, Ph.D., Art Critic
December 2009
"The paintings of Julie Montgomery capture the landscape of elsewhere. Through veils of color, forms are built, but never fully defined. Light permeates, but remains ephemeral. It is as if one is looking at a reflection that could be erased were a wind to come along.
Painting for Julie B. Montgomery is as much a reductive process as it is additive. Thin washes are applied and subsequently scrubbed away to reveal figures and places. What remains recalls the work of Helen Frankenthaler, the Impressionists and Chinese landscape paintings yet reflects the artist's singular style and process. True to her nature, Julie Montgomery explores spirituality and beauty while creating a space for one to reflect on where real life lies."
Andrea P. Sparrow, White Sparrow Artist in Residence Director, Artist
"The magic in Julie Montgomery's paintings is like that of poetry. Her subtle, warm palette of layers added and removed from the canvas, have a power that is felt long before any literal information is taken in. They bring to mind something Jorge Luis Borges said about poetry, "I know for a fact that we FEEL the beauty of a poem long before we even begin to think of a meaning." These paintings unveil themselves slowly, akin to the work of JMW Turner where the eyes have to adjust before all the subtle detail can be taken in."
Donna Seager, Gallerist
