Julie Blackmon was born in 1966 in Springfield Missouri. She began exhibiting her work in 2004 and establishing her career. Since 2004 she has received several awards and nominations, many of which pertain to her work in Mind Games and Domestic Vacations. Mind Games is a collection of children photography in black and white in outdoor scenarios. The settings of the photographs along with the colors, or lack thereof, almost ties the entire selection of photographs together.
Domestic Vacations, however, was in a sense inspired by family gatherings. Julie Blackmon’s own family may play a role in the images she chooses to capture. She is one of nine children, and has three children of her own. In Domestic Vacations she chose to explore the lives of her family at home, as well as the lives of her sisters and their families. Julie Blackmon describes the images as both “fictional and auto-biographical”, as they are meant to reflect their lives “imagined and real.”
The combination of imagined and real as described by Blackmon in her Domestic Vacations statement can not only be seen in the images captured, it is also experienced when viewing the photographs. In “Flying Umbrellas,” for example, have that sense of realness and imagination Blackmon described in her statement. The scene photograph is seemingly real, aside from the flying umbrellas. Blackmon’s juxtaposing description of real and imaginative, can be seen throughout all of Domestic Vacations. The chaos and madness of family is portrayed in these images, while demonstrating the calming effect a family can have on an individual.
The almost serene yet complex nature of this photograph perfectly depict the ideal of family, Julie Blackmon was trying to explore. Combining these types of emotions and thoughts, Blackmon is describing most families in a real and imaginative way. Her new work, also demonstrates the chaos common in most families while focusing on the actual family in the image. Her newest work is very similar to Domestic Vacations. Blackmon uses similar lighting and color schemes in her photographs.
These two photographs for example, are very similar, but are from two different collections. Candy is from Domestic Vacations, in which Blackmon tried to play with the the idea of family and the chaos behind it. In her new work, Queen, the same chaotic feeling is presented in a more subtle manner. Julie Blackmon, continues to photograph families and children. She has permanent collections in Cleveland, Seattle, Chicago, Houston, Rochester, Toledo, Oaks, and Little Rock and is a Gallery Artist of the Catherine Edelman Gallery.
Sources:
http://www.edelmangallery.com/
http://julieblackmon.com/index.cfm
http://www.ba-reps.com/artists/julie-blackmon#image_277200
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