Julie Hogan
Dahlonega, Georgia
My work often alludes to temporal patterns of light and growth in the forest surrounding my studio, though my first concern is design and color.
MessageLike many artists, my enjoyment of drawing extends to some of my my earliest memories. Making marks with the babysitter's lipstick on the wall behind my parent’s bed was an exhilarating experience (even though the consequences probably were not). The excitement of selecting large newsprint tablets and new crayons at Hammett's in Boston is rekindled each time I handle new supplies. Being absorbed in the process of making an idea visible continues to be the preferred way to spend my time. There has never been a question in my mind that I am an Artist.
Undergraduate studies at the University of Georgia led to a BFA in 1974 followed by more than forty years of teaching art primarily in secondary environments including urban, suburban, and rural settings. I continued to develop my own art practice during pursuit of a Graduate degree in Counseling and Psychology at West Georgia College followed by work as a school counselor for a number of years. I returned to the Visual Art high school classroom for the remaining ten years of public education service until my retirement in 2015. I occasionally teach part time in the Visual Art Department at the University of North Georgia near my home and studio. There I enjoy collegial relationships and participate regularly in group, faculty and community exhibitions.
I have been surrounded by makers and making throughout my lifetime and continue to engage in creative, visual processes daily. Creative practice and my experience as an educator are inextricably entwined, one motivating and informing the other.
Statement
My abstract multi media paintings play with space using line and color. I enjoy developing relationships between elements, preferring color, scale and contrast over representation, though, on occasion, a piece of a photograph or observational drawing might appear in the work. The final images are not pre-planned but develop throughout a process of discovery that may take days, months or years to mature. As I revisit technical processes and clarify design principles, meaning begins to emerge from recurring elements at times stories develop from these and their relationships. I want to provoke the imagination, develop fresh insight and imagery, invite engagement in the story making. Play the edges between abstraction and representation, perception and meaning.
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