PRETTY, STRANGE at Narwhal Art Projects (680 Queen St. West), runs from August 11 to September 4. Opening reception on Thursday, August 11, 7-10pm. Artist will be in attendance. See listing.
An artist profile of Julie Moon
You just finished your artist residency at the center for ceramics in Berlin. Were the past 2 months spent in Pankow used specifically for the preparation of the Narwhal show?
I hadn’t planned on having any concrete plans while I was in Berlin, and that felt so good! My entire stay was three months long and about a month in, I think my work took a turn and I got really excited about my materials and what I had been seeing. Thankfully those ideas worked with ideas I had for my upcoming show at Narwhal.
It seems like your work has a taken a new direction. For your show ‘Pretty Pleas’ the pieces looked very organic, less figurative. Is that something we can expect more of for your new show ‘Pretty, Strange’?
I’ve always been interested in making abstract work and I feel like that’s always been a part of my practice in some way. I’ve also been drawn to making blobby/amorphous shapes since I started working in clay, (and I’m sure the material helps to influence that.)
For both these exhibitions, the forms are similar and I see them as an abstraction of the human figure. However with most of the works in “Pretty, Strange” I make specific references to the figure by incorporating limbs or hands into the pieces. Playing with posture and poses during the building process, helps give the work a sense of feeling or personality.
You have been traveling for many months now, participating in artist residencies all over. Now that you have a show in Toronto, are you back for good? What is next?
Actually, things are up in the air at the moment. I’ve been accepted into a long-term residency program at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia. If all goes well, I should be relocating there in the fall for at least 18 months. I think it’ll be an amazing place to make work, with lots of talented and exciting artists around. But Toronto is home and I miss it a lot. I’m getting an itch to settle down somewhere, and so I’m sure I’ll be back for good in a few years time.
When people think of Julie Moon’s work, many recognize your poppy brooch. Recently you have branched out and starting making adorable doppelganger pins. How did that concept come about?
The idea for the pins came about by playing around in the studio. I have a tendency to see people and faces in everything…including puddles of slip! When slip is in its wet stage, it has a really smooth, skin-like surface, so I was checking out a mess of slip drips I made on a plaster board, I immediately saw them as heads. It was a fun exercise that helped me to loosen up with my drawing and to not have to control shapes.
When you were in Berlin did you see any shows (or were you too busy working)? Any artists that we should check out?
My time in Berlin was amazing, partly because I was able to slow down and work at a realistic pace. I was in a part of the city that was a little further away from all the action, so it was nice to retreat to my little house and studio in Pankow.
At least two or three times a week, I would head into the city and visit galleries, markets or check out some bars and clubs. There’s so much going on and such a great mix of history and contemporary art/culture that I couldn’t help but be inspired by the old and the new.
I visited the Meissen factory which was totally inspiring. Meissen is the oldest European manufacturer of porcelain, founded by Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony in the 16th century.
Also, I went to see the Boros Collection which is a private art museum housed in a World War II bunker. They had several Olafur Eliasson pieces that were spectacular. They also had work by Kitty Kraus and Tobias Rehberger, whose work I had never seen before.
A few clay artists I’ll definitely keep my eye on are Rebecca Manson, Alexandra Gaul and Ane Fabricus Christiansen. I met them through the residency and they were all inspiring in different ways.
When you were working in the studio what kept you going? Did you have any music, podcasts, or audiobooks that helped you procrastinate or stay focused?
When I’m working in the studio, I can get into a flow where I lose track of time. When that happens, I find I work more intuitively and so I’m not so self conscious about what happens. And because I work alone and for long stretches at a time, I need music/podcasts in the studio. Music is best when I need to really focus and get stuff done. R.L Burnside and Junior Kimbrough are old Mississippi blues artists that I’ve been listening to lately. And podcasts are great for keeping me connected to the world outside. Radiolab, Tapestry and Democracy Now! are definitely at the top of my podcast list.
