SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA.- The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art is presenting Strange Magic, a solo exhibition by Seattle-based artist Julie Alpert. Alpert has been delighting communities with her thoughtful and life-like installations around the world for many years.
As we step into Strange Magic, artist Julie Alpert’s first solo show in California, we know one thing for certain: life is being lived. There are potted flowers, tables, windows, shelves, bottles of hand soap and laundry detergent, a slightly oversized mug and box fan - all necessary functional and decorative elements of a routine living space. Amidst this delightful chaos we also see the youthful exuberance of life: the colors, shapes, and patterns invite us to experience feelings of playfulness and delight – a slightly imperfect handmade beauty.
In preparation for her installations, Alpert uses a stream-of-consciousness process to make lots of drawings and collages (the mockups for Strange Magic are just to your right). These smaller yet equally intricate pieces enable her to work out the colors, textures and shapes that she translates into the large-scale work.
“Coloring, cutting and gluing,” Alpert says, “is my favorite way to connect with the world and to myself.” The use of arts and crafts supplies, hardware store materials, and modified household objects emphasizes the wacky, wonderful, and downright magic that’s possible in routine and repetition.
Informed by Alpert’s daily walks in South Seattle’s Seward Park, surrounded by majestic lakes and mountains, and filled with unexpected encounters with goslings, herons, woodpeckers, and otters, Alpert infuses her work with this same sense of wonder and surprise, only using the interior world, our privately lived yet universal, domestic lives, as her stage. In a world full of hard things, Alpert’s work bridges the gaps between our realities and expectations and transports us back to a time where we can play as children do.
Julie Alpert is a Seattle-based artist who makes colorful site-specific installations and works on paper. She earned a BA from the University of Maryland and an MFA from the University of Washington, both in painting and drawing. She has received grants from the Pollock- Krasner Foundation, Artist Trust, and Oklahoma Visual Art Coalition and has participated in artist residencies across the US including two MacDowell fellowships, Roswell Artist in Residence
Program, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, VCCA, and I-Park Foundation. Her work is in the collections of the Anderson Museum, Facebook Seattle, Ledger Bentonville, Seattle Public Utilities, King County, and the Washington State Art Collection. She has a major public art commission opening at SeaTac Airport next year and is represented by J. Rinehart Gallery. Julie is married to the artist Andy Arkley and they have three cats: Coconut, Koala, and Baby Cloud.
