To see a painting by Julia Chiang is to experience a connection to the vastness of the universe—from the tiniest of details in her mark marking to the impact of colors appearing like aurora borealis in the night sky. Concurrently, the bulbous sensual shapes of her ceramics transport us through their organic forms. A sense of connectivity, of the body in nature and the environment that surrounds us, has always been part of the artist's approach and is fundamental to her work. "I'm always interested in our bodies as vessels, what we contain and what we cannot. All that comes out of us, all that is within us. The borders both real and imagined. Existing in the in-between," says the artist.
Her meditative and material-related processes give birth to detailed paintings featuring intricate webs of shapes and forms, flowing in converging directions and carefully constructed through layers of paint, and vibrant ceramics fluctuating between fragility and strength. Her organic-looking imagery borrows from the physical—medical scans, internal body liquids and environments—and the psychological—fields of layered feelings and emotions when the inner self faces the exterior world. Chiang actively engages in blurring the boundaries both formally and as a Chinese American familiar with grappling for a sense of place and belonging.
This first monograph on the artist presents her work from the late 1990s to the present and features an essay by Eugene Tsai, writer and former Senior Curator at the Brooklyn Museum, as well as a conversation with Jasmine Wahi, Founder and Co-Director of Project for Empty Space, New York City and Newark, New Jersey.