Human attempts to control and predict the weather are fascinating to me. Each season, we have a prepared list of names for each major storm that can come our way. We have color coded radar maps that apply hues symbolically to alert us to the patches of rain, wind, and force that are thought to be encountered. Once named, meteorologists discuss each storm as though it is a person, imbuing it with a personality as its fortune is told. There is an attempt to identify and understand each system, yet we still find ourselves powerless against these forces.

While the visual data is inspiring to me, so is the constantly changing and unpredictable nature of my subject. I start by creating rain patterns using sand and water and exposing them onto my silkscreens. Once printed, the “raindrops” dictate how I cut the paper and I cut in ways I might not expect. As I build a storm out of the pieces, the artwork becomes a meditation for the many things that are out of our hands but that we try so desperately to control. Although we try to assign names to our deepest fears, the most beautiful secrets of our world are often out of our reach.

Julie is lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated with her BFA in Sculpture from The Tyler School of Art, and her MFA in Printmaking from The Ohio State University. Julie exhibits locally and nationally, and her work is included in both public and private collections. She has exhibited at the Greenhill Center for NC Art, The Print Center, Philadelphia, SCOPE Miami Beach, Art Basel, The Mint Museum, Charlotte, UNC Wilmington, and the University of Utah. She recently completed a large scale installation for the School of Engineering at Duke University.  

www.julieannegreenberg.com

When did your interest in art begin vs. when you began thinking of it as a career/life choice?

I have been an artist since a very young age. It was always a way of life and looking at the world. The shift to it becoming a career choice was as a high school junior, when my brother encouraged me to go to art school. I had always thought of my creativity as a character trait that would help me in the career path I chose. It never really clicked that it could just be the career. I went on to pursue a BFA and then an MFA and it was truly liberating. If I am really honest with myself, while I have gone down the career path of being an artist, it is still sinking in and something I work hard to internalize in the day to day.  

What draws you to your particular subject matter?

I am inspired by weather and natural phenomena. I have most recently focused on the subject of big weather events like hurricanes, winter storms, and other disturbances. Throughout my life, I have had the opportunity to travel to different parts of the world and experience the land and water as it manifests in each space. I close my eyes and remember hiking along the Mississippi River after the delta would flood, and how the cotton fields would transform into ink-black oceans at dusk. I remember growing up close to the Jersey shore and observing the mercurial nature of the sea. I think about my travels to Venice and the rising water levels. I recall snowfall in Ohio and how it would freeze every lake and pond with its perfect repeating crystals. Everywhere I go, I find water.  

In my practice, I find myself surrounded by cut paper and uncertainty. It is as though I am in the middle of a storm. The more I work on these pieces, the more I feel invested with the idea of forces that are out of our control. As a printmaker, I enjoy the unexpected energy that takes place when screenprinting patterns to paper and connect deeply with the surprises along the way. In the hours and days and months it takes to construct one of my pieces, I see each work as a meditation and a push and pull between the choices in life that I have agency to control and the events that are out of my grasp.  

What interest of yours (outside of art) ends up influencing your practice the most?

The more I live and experience, the more I see how fragile and unpredictable the human condition is. I think often about landforms that precede me and trees that will outlive me. My practice resides in the shadowy corners of the unknown that surround our lives.  

What is one piece of advice you wish you could give your younger self?

To keep going even if I am scared.  

What would you say is your biggest goal for this year?

I very much feel like I am not finished making this current body of work and I plan to continue to do so. In addition, I also have the desire to experiment with even more materials in some separate bodies of work that move away from specificity. I am interested in seeing what happens if I invent my own forecasts and disturbances and juxtapose imagery in unexpected ways. It all feels very vague right now because it isn't real yet and that is exciting to me! I am excited to engage with some studies and experiments that allow me to figure out these suggestions in my head that have been whispering louder as time goes on.