JULIA GUTMAN

Early Life and Education

Born in 1993 in Sydney, Australia, Julia Gutman was drawn to creative expression from a young age, drawing, writing, and making films. Led by her mother, a painter who hand-altered clothing, she took to DIY practices, sewing worn jeans into purses and restoring old toys.

Gutman trained in painting at UNSW Art & Design in Paddington (2015), before attending Rhode Island School of Design in New York (2018). There, her studies in sculpture led her to reflect on the materiality of objects, their politics and global implications. To work on a larger scale, Gutman turned to textiles, a material selected for being at once soft and expansive.

Julia Gutman Artworks

Julia Gutman’s large-scale portraits are stitched together from fabrics donated by friends and family. They carry individual memories while bringing new perspectives to art historical muses.

No one Told Me the Shadows Could Be So Bright (2020)

After the sudden death of her studio partner, Gutman shifted her focus to the personal implications of materials. Combining her interest in figurative painting and storytelling, she asked friends and family to donate used clothing, which she tore apart and sewed back to create the textile embroidery No one Told Me the Shadows Could Be So Bright.

For all the connotations of sewing as delicate labour, there is nothing precious about Gutman’s work. Roughly hewn and loosely threaded, the composition shows six women bathing amid a muted olive landscape. Countering depictions of women by painters such as Cézanne, there is a ferocity to Gutman’s subjects—not delicate, but dishevelled, muscular, and indifferent.

Early Exhibitions - The Black Jeans (2022)

In other textiles, Gutman and her friends recreate the poses from paintings of canonical modernists such as Balthus and Gaugin. Balthus’ The White Skirt (1937), portraying his young wife lounging on a chair with her blouse open, is modelled by Gutman herself in The Black Jeans (2022). In the life-sized tapestry, Gutman recovers the sitter’s pose in her everyday clothing, visibly irate at the power imbalance. The painting was included in the artist’s first solo exhibition, Muses, at Sullivan & Strumpf Sydney in 2022.

Archibald Prize - Head in the sky, feet on the ground (2023)

In 2023, Gutman became the second youngest winner of the Archibald Prize in a century, with her portrait of singer-songwriter Montaigne (Jessica Cerro). Head in the sky, feet on the ground references Egon Schiele‘s 1917 painting Seated Woman with Bent Knees, which subverted conventional representations of femininity at the time.

Sydney Opera House Commission - Lighting of the Sails: Echo (2024)

Projected on the Sydney Opera House, Gutman’s animated epic Lighting of the Sails: Echo presents a contemporary take on Ovid’s myth of Echo and Narcissus, made using textiles donated by her community. Conceived with animation technologists, Pleasant Company, the narrative presents a journey of self-discovery complemented by dance, music, and puppetry.

Awards and Accolades

Beyond receiving the 2023 Archibald Prize, Julia Gutman was a finalist for the 2021 Ramsay Art Prize (Art Gallery of South Australia), The 66th Blake Prize (Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre), and the 2020 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship.

Exhibitions

Julia Gutman’s work has been exhibited in Australia, Europe, and the United States.

Solo exhibitions include Sydney Opera House; Sullivan+Strumpf, Melbourne (both 2024); and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney (2022).

Selected group exhibitions include SECCI, Milan (2023–2024); Palazzo Monti, Italy; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (both 2023); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2022); T293, Rome; Art Gallery of South Australia (Ramsay Art Prize); Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Queensland (all 2021); and Artspace, Sydney (Create NSW Emerging Fellowship, 2020).

The artist lives and works in Sydney.

Gallery

Julia Gutman is represented by Sullivan+Strumpf.

Website

The artist’s Instagram is here.

Elaine YJ Zheng | Ocula | 2024