Julia Bland makes artworks that exist somewhere in the space between painting, sculpture, and tapestry. Her experimental process incorporates stitching, weaving, knotting, dying, and even burning her materials, creating sublime abstractions of geometric compositions. Bland also creates oil and canvas collages in the same vein, as well as drawings that help her think through her ideas, functioning as a kind of map with different marks indicating the process or material she intends to engage.
Julia Bland was born in Palo Alto, CA in 1986. She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 and received her MFA from The Yale School of Art in 2012. She has been an artist in residence at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Lighthouse Works, The Sharpe-Walentas Space Program, and The Shandaken Project: Storm King. She has received awards including The Milton and Sally Avery Fellowship from Yaddo, The Carol Scholsberg Memorial Prize, NYFA/NYSCA fellowship in Craft/Sculpture, The Florence Leif Award for Excellence in Painting, and the Natasha And Jacques Gelman Travel Fellowship. Recent solo exhibitions include Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson, WY; Derek Eller Gallery, New York, NY; Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL; Guesthouse Projects, Jackson, WY; The Lighthouse Works, Fisher’s Island, NY; Helena Anrather, New York, NY; and On Stellar Rays; New York, NY. Recent group exhibitions include The Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY; John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI; Chambers Fine Art, Beijing, China; and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY. She has been reviewed or featured in many publications, including The New York Times, Mousse Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail. Bland lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.