Name Julia Clark | ||
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Julia Rosa Clark (born 1975) is a South African contemporary artist and educator best known for her "graphically complex, textually coded and colour-rich paper installations."
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Early life and education
Julia was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1975. She graduated with a Master of Fine Art Degree from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town in 2004.
Work
Clark has worked as an artist and curator, and have been featured in international exhibitions. Her exhibitions feature works that range from lit-up suitcases to clothing to large wall installations. Her exhibits engulf the entire gallery, using the floor, walls and ceiling as canvas for her mixed media art. Often using found objects, her materials include children's toys, old boxes, and meticulous paper cutouts. Clark describes her work altering these objects as a "device for coping with an overload of information or emotion". The variety of styles, multitude of cutouts and use of bright color give Clark's work a fanciful feel that simultaneously express profound topics. Her 2004-2005 exhibition, A Million Trillion Gazillion, used various elements to explore the "changing nature of knowledge systems." With the help of other art students, Clark influenced traditional educational materials as illustrated books to portray the "in-congruence of an idealized world view with the failure and realities of our contemporary world." Three of her solo exhibitions act as a trilogy, looking into the fleeting nature of knowledge systems.
Another exhibition, Hypocrite's Lament (2007) focused on "response cycles of addition and destruction", (2007). Her following exhibition, the uplifting Fever Jubilee (2010) focused on growth, with works such as plants made of paper cut-outs that acts as a space for Clark and her family to relax with the audience. The final piece of the trilogy focused directly on science and education, featuring installations that allude to concepts in physics and philosophy.
In addition to her solo exhibitions, Clark has been featured in numerous group exhibitions and collaborations, which have been well received by critics. She has also curated and co-curated numerous shows including Big Wednesday (2008) and Sing into my Mouth (2009) at the whatiftheworld gallery in Woodstock, Cape Town.
Teaching
With her extensive education, Clark lectures at numerous South African universities. Clark has taught at her alma mater Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town a variety of classes including lower and upper-level print-media, painting and drawing classes. During this period she also co-supervised a Masters of Fine Art student and was involved in the Post Graduate Seminar program. She has also acted as a lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town School of Photography, Cape Peninsula University of Technology,and other art specialized high-schools.