Julie Blackmon

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 years 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 this body of work. We live in a culture where we are both “child-centered” and “self-obsessed.” The struggle between living in the moment versus escaping to another reality is intense since these two opposites strive to dominate. Caught in the swirl of soccer practices, play dates, work, and trying to find our way in our “make-over” culture, we must still create the space to find ourselves. The expectations of family life have never been more at odds with each other. These issues, as well as the relationship between the domestic landscape of the past and present, are issues I have explored in these photographs. I believe there are moments that can be found throughout any given day that bring sanctuary. It is in finding these moments amidst the stress of the everyday that my life as a mother parallels my work as an artist, and where the dynamics of family life throughout time seem remarkably unchanged. 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.

Awards:

2008 American Photo's Emerging Photographer of 2008
2007 PDN's 30
2006 Critical Mass Book Award Winner, for Domestic Vacations
2006 Santa Fe Center for Photography Project Competition, 1st Place, for Domestic Vacations,
Jurors: Anne Wilkes Tucker, Yossi Milo and Miriam Romais
2006 Photospiva, 1st Place, for body of work, Domestic Vacations
Juror: Keith Carter
2005 Photospiva, 1st Place, for body of work, Mind Games
Jurors: Robert and Shana Parke Harrison
2005 B&W Magazine, Merit Award, Single Image Contest
2004 Santa Fe Center for Photography Project Competition, Honorable Mention for
Mind Games
2004 Society for Contemporary Photography, Kansas City, MO, Current Works Contest, Merit Award
for Mind Games

EXHIBITIONS:

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2010
Fahey Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, 2009
Paris Photo,2009, Paris
SF Camerwork, San Francisco, 2009
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO, May 2009
2008 Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, May 23rd (book signinig)
2008 Photoeye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, June 27th (book signing)
2008 G. Gibson Gallery, Seattle, September (book signing)
2008 Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago, November-December (book signing
2007 Gail Gibson Gallery, Seattle, WA, May
2007 Claire Oliver Gallery, NY, NY, September
2006 Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago, IL, November
2006 Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon, July
2006 Photoeye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, June 2006
2006 Good Girl Art Gallery, Springfield, MO, January 2006
2006 Arts Center of the Ozarks, Fayettville, AR, January 2006
2005 University of Arkansas at Little Rock, August 2005
2005 Drury University, February 2005

GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

2009, Gilman Contemporary, Sun Valley/Ketchum
2008 Presumed Innocent, DeCordova Museum, Boston
2007 KIDS, Brown University
2007 Claire Oliver Gallery, NY, NY, September 2007
2006 Photographic Center Northwest, Chick Flick, Seattle, WA, November 2006
2006 Jenkins Johnson Gallery, American Eden, New York, NY, July 2006
2006 Museum of Contemporary Photography, Domestic Diaries, August 2006
2006 Society for Contemporary Photography, Family Pack, June 2006
2006 Photo LA, Los Angeles, CA, featured artist of Photoeye Gallery, January 2006
2005 Group Portrait, Boston University, Photographic Resource Center, November 2006

Collections:

George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, WA
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas CIty, MO
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, WA
Toledo Museum of Art
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Midwest Photographers’ Project, Chicago, IL
C/O Berlin, Germany
University of Arkansas at Little Rock


Publications:

New York Times Magazine, June 2009
TIME Magazine, November 2009
Real Simple Magazine, November 2009
MORE Magazine, May 2009
Phot' Art international, (France) Summer 2008
Oxford American, Spring 2008
GEO Magazine, (Italy) July 2008
Vanity Fair, (Italy) May 2008
C International Photo Magazine, (London) Issue No. 6
New York Magazine, January, 2008
Cookie, (US) October, 2007
The New Yorker, August, 2007
Milk Magazine, Paris, France, Spring 2007
Fotograph Magazine, Germany, May 2006
VISION Magazine, Chinese Fashion/Art Magazine, July 2006
SHOP, Etc., July 2006
Magenta Magazine, Canada, September 2006
Zoom Magazine (Italian), November 2006
National Geographic's "World of Digital Photography"