“The Dutch saying “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. 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.” – Julie Blackmon
Free Range will be exhibited at Robert Mann Gallery. The exhibition opens thursday 4th, and coincide with the release of her new book, Homegrown.
EXHIBITION
Free Range
September 4 – October 18, 2014
Robert Mann Gallery
525 West 26th Street
NY 10001, New York City
USA
