Emerging Artist Profile :: Julia Rommel

5 June 2009

Untitled (detail), 2008
Oil and graphite on linen
14 x 11 inches

Following in the footsteps of her contemporary abstract expressionist predecessors such as Jackson Pollock, young artist Julia Rommel confronts artistic convention through the language of abstraction. Through her carefully rendered canvases and unique process of replicating brushstrokes, Rommel explores the practice of painting as it exists in its most rudimentary form: the line.

“My painting practice obsessively questions the importance of the mark made by my hand. I start by casually making brushstrokes on a canvas, then I painstakingly represent, repeat, and structure these brushstrokes. The absurdity of my fixation on a painted mark echoes the absurdity of our fascination with this gesture, this art form.”

Untitled, 2008
Oil and graphite on linen
11 x 14 inches

For Rommel, it is this “painstaking” process that defines the conceptual undertones of her work. Her use and reproduction of a single oil line challenges artistic practice as well as the thresholds of human nature by forcing the imperfections of her canvases into a seemingly perfect geometry. In works such as “Big Ship,” Rommel synchronizes these imperfections to cultivate a symmetric and calculated aesthetic.

Big Ship, 2007
Oil, graphite, and gesso on panel
24 x 24 inches

“I value the hand-made because it evokes imperfection, mortality, and incomprehensibly vast variety, but I can't resist the impulse to study and challenge my hand's apparent limitations.”

But as Rommel acknowledges, it is the futility of this quest for perfection, rather than the quest itself, that drives the deeper introspective quality of her work. Rommel uses her signature artistic process to come to terms with her own limits as an artist, surrendering her desire to control nature as part of the larger challenge of abstract painting.

Untitled, 2008
Oil and graphite on linen
14 x 11 inches

Born and raised in Salisbury, Maryland, Julia Rommel received her undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Richmond and later completed her MFA degree at American University in Washington D.C. in 2005. Her work has been featured in three group exhibitions, most recently appearing at New York’s Moti Hasson Gallery in 2006 as part of its “Octuber to Decumber” group show. At the age of 28, Rommel continues to live and work in New York City.

By Phyllis Lally