About the Artist
Providence, Rhode Island
Julia Samuels was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and she earned her bachelor of fine arts degree in printmaking from Pratt Institute in 2007. In Brooklyn, she participated in founding the Gowanus Studio Space, providing a community gathering point and accessible studio spaces to artists, as well as 596 Acres, which helps residents navigate earning legal access to public lands in their neighborhoods. Samuels earned her master of fine arts degree in printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design in 2015, after which she founded Overpass Projects, a fine art print publisher committed to innovating contemporary printmaking techniques as well as amplifying underrepresented voices. At Overpass Projects, Samuels publishes her own work as well as collaborative editions that have been acquired by several collections, including the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Ford Foundation.
Websites:
Social Media: @OverpassProjects
Artist Statement
Intricacy and beauty can be found anywhere, and I see art everywhere I go—at every traffic stop or speeding by on the highway, in the whole built-up world around us, and in every interaction where the natural world is attempting to reclaim its space. Power lines, phone cables, chain-link and barbed wire fences are things we all encounter on a daily basis and most likely do not consider beautiful. I appreciate the challenges these elements bring to the medium of woodcut. Cables and wires silhouetted against a clear sky are elements positively drawn over deep negative space, and in carving I invert this relationship, investing my effort into the areas carved away, the blank spaces. My discipline and care are leaving behind, and untouched, the intention of the original artwork, that fence, cable, tree, or vine that exists in the real world.