Julia Schwartz
the opening door
July 26 - September 7, 2024
Reception: Friday, July 26, 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Julia Schwartz, the secret place, 2024, oil on cotton duck, 36 x 36 inches
Julia Schwartz’s new paintings came about not long after a studio was finished in her El Cerrito backyard. The first works she made in there, looking out the studio windows onto the then green yard behind (now summer-golden), were soaked in all that green; “it wasn’t until I turned my back to the windows that I found my footing”.
Many of these paintings share a structure: a kind of portal/gate/window. The title is from an lyrics to Elton John song, specifically a version sung by Lesley Duncan, including the line “love is the opening door.” For Schwartz, painting is, when it’s working, the opening door.
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Julia Schwartz 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 nationally and internationally including shows in LA, New York, London, Amsterdam, and Hudson. 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. Schwartz has been a member of the artist-run project The Binder of Women. After 20 years in Santa Monica, she now lives and works in El Cerrito, California.
