Art depicts my situation—the geographic, the emotional, the existential, the state of the world- and how I make sense of it. These days that means trying to make sense of the senselessness of the everyday world and its outsized “seismic disasters” including personal loss and grief as well as profound political and cultural fragmentation.
I have always liked Keats’ idea of “negative capability”; it has been a touchstone in my life and in the studio. Without benefit or burden of formal “technique” in painting, I am comfortable with doubt and uncertainty, the freedom to explore materials and methods, and an infinite freedom to fail.
Julia Schwartz (1957, Pomona, CA) is a visual artist working in painting, installation, and paper. Deeply influenced by years of psychoanalytic study and practice, her paintings straddle figuration and abstraction. She has exhibited widely, including shows in LA, New York, and San Francisco. Schwartz’s curatorial projects include States of Being at the Torrance Art Museum (2015) and Black Mirror at Charlie James Gallery (2017). Her work has been featured in numerous publications including New American Paintings, Two Coats of Paint, Post Road, Huffpost, and the New York Times. After 20 years in Santa Monica, she now lives and works in El Cerrito, California.