JULIE HARRIS----BIOGRAPHY
Julie Harris has been included in over one hundred and seventy FIVE regional, national and international shows. Highlights include a solo exhibition at BSB Gallery in Trenton, New Jersey, two traveling shows; A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art, initiated in New Jersey, and Underneath it All, initiated in Washington D.C. Underneath it All, exhibited in Soho New York City in 2014 at ISE Gallery where Julie lectured about her creative work. Currently, she is the Head of Printmaking at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, in close proximity to Manhattan. She continues to work primarily in intaglio printmaking, silkscreen handmade paper and the book arts.
Harris was born and raised in Michigan. She was the youngest of five children. During her early years she was typically left to her own imagination playing alone outdoors for entertainment. From playing outside, climbing trees and investigating various life forms, she developed a strong connection to nature and the world around her. During her later childhood, she began spending summers in Ireland with relatives, and was deeply impressed with the strong connection that the Irish have toward nature and culture. The Irish tradition of the "walk" made an especially important impression on her later work as a visual artist. This tradition recalls that as one travels through life, objects are collected along the way to represent places and experiences. With this understanding, she began to believe that places are mapped on people's souls as much as people are mapped on the sites which they have visited. This concept later affected her creative thought process as she realized that nature and humans share in a similar vulnerability: both are dependent upon the other for survival.
Her college education began at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio where she earned a B. F. A. in Drawing, Magna Cum Laude, in 1991. One year later she was accepted with a full teaching assistantship At Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she earned an M. F. A. in Printmaking, Summa Cum Laude, in 1994. At present, her creative work focuses upon the integration of silkscreen, collage, photo-intaglio, and handmade paper. Her imagery centers upon creating visual narratives through the juxtaposition of found objects and printed imagery. Metaphorically, the content addresses such autobiographical concerns as thoughts, humor, feelings and experiences. Handmade paper is typically used to imply a skin-like reference which symbolically suggests the dichotomy of vulnerability and resilience. The finished artworks act as substitutes for her female self and the experiences within her life.