Artist-led tour and reception on Friday, November 15, 5-8 p.m.
—The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (SLOMA) is pleased to announce Strange Magic, a solo exhibition by Seattle-based artist Julie Alpert. Alpert has been delighting communities with her thoughtful and life-like installations around the world for many years. The tour and reception are free to the public.
Strange Magic is artist Julie Alpert’s first solo show in California. This exhibition is a demonstration of live being lived. There are potted flowers, tables, windows, shelves, bottles of hand soap and laundry detergent, a slightly oversized mug and box fan—all necessary functional and decorative elements of a routine living space. Amidst this delightful chaos viewers can see the youthful exuberance of life: the colors, shapes, and patterns invite us to experience feelings of playfulness and delight—a slightly imperfect handmade beauty.
In preparation for her installations, Alpert uses a stream-of-consciousness process to make lots of drawings and collages. These smaller yet equally intricate pieces enable her to work out the colors, textures and shapes that she translates into the large-scale work.
“Coloring, cutting and gluing,” Alpert says, “is my favorite way to connect with the world and to myself.” The use of arts and crafts supplies, hardware store materials, and modified household objects emphasizes the wacky, wonderful, and downright magic that’s possible in routine and repetition.
Informed by Alpert’s daily walks in South Seattle’s Seward Park, surrounded by majestic lakes and mountains, and filled with unexpected encounters with goslings, herons, woodpeckers, and otters, Alpert infuses her work with this same sense of wonder and surprise, only using the interior world, our privately lived yet universal, domestic lives, as her stage. In a world full of hard things, Alpert’s work bridges the gaps between our realities and expectations and transports us back to a time where we can play as children do.
Julie Alpert is a Seattle-based artist who earned a BA from the University of Maryland and an MFA from the University of Washington. She has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Artist Trust, and Oklahoma Visual Art Coalition and has participated in artist residencies across the US including two MacDowell fellowships, Roswell Artist in Residence Program, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, VCCA, and I-Park Foundation. Her work is in the collections of the Anderson Museum, Facebook Seattle, Ledger Bentonville, Seattle Public Utilities, King County, and the Washington State Art Collection. She has a major public art commission opening at SeaTac Airport next year and is represented by J. Rinehart Gallery. Julie is married to the artist Andy Arkley and they have three cats: Coconut, Koala, and Baby Cloud.
The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, located at 1010 Broad Street, San Luis Obispo, is an innovative and accessible museum. The museum presents an outstanding exhibitions program that features artists from California and around the world, as well as an ongoing series of dynamic events that engage visitors of all ages. The Strange Magic exhibition is possible thanks to the generous support of our sponsors Liz Mason and Todd Peterson. For more information about current and upcoming events, visit www.sloma.org or call (805) 543-8562.
