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Julie Umerle: New Paintings
"Umerle arrives at her imagery via a hyper formalism that makes no distinction between medium, surface, and support. The formal apparatus is gravity’s gesture, its pull downwards. Illusionistic depth is achieved by the layering of the medium, which is an interesting nod to history. The physicality of the layers bears a relationship to the Baroque curtain; here it is a curtain that is divided into strands of acrylic. It has the effect of suspending time,
as the paint tends to conceal and reveal, stretching away from the viewer into infinite space."
Jason Stopa
NY Arts Magazine, Vol 17, Summer 2011
Cosmos or Chaos
"Her works seem to evoke a feeling of suspension, as if what we see is a held or frozen moment within an on-going process. This sense of simplicity is achieved through an enormous process of condensation, resulting in a level of clarity and unity
that permeates the work."
Simon Morley, British artist and art historian
From exhibition catalogue 'Cosmos or Chaos' at studio1.1, London, 2010
About the work
"These paintings are literally what they are, and do not transcend their materiality,
nor transcend any aspect of them, but are seemingly factual and somehow in that
factualness constitute some sort of analogy, which is unordered, non-symbolic, just
happens, matter of fact. Literally if these paintings were to succeed we should be
able to say nothing about them. Here we have very much a series of decision-making,
and that's the matter of factness of them. We have decision after decision made
apparent, in which we know that there's constant intervention on the part of the artist."
Saul Ostrow, art critic and Chair of Visual Arts at Cleveland Institute of Art, USA
From a review of Julie Umerle's work at Parsons School of Design, New York, 1998
Catalogue Essay
"To call a painting 'Paragon' is a daring move but in many ways, in her works of that title, Julie Umerle offers up a perfect paradigm
for painting. The 'Paragon' paintings give us two spaces and, as in most of the recent work, one acts as a foil to the other. One side
of the canvas proposes an infinite space, a space to step into, to escape to, to retreat to. The other side situates the viewer firmly
in front of the work. The surface requires that you notice it - the paint thick with quartzsand keeps one at bay - you are in the present,
the here and now. The 'Paragon' paintings make us aware of our sublunary state - we are here but we want to be there. Something is in the way.
But perhaps we are glad of it."
Rebecca Fortnum, Senior lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts, London
From exhibition catalogue 'Julie Umerle : Recent Paintings', at Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, 1995
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