Artists in Inventory

 

Artist Statement

I work in mixed media. I make assemblage from found objects and I paint and collage with encaustic, and create my artist books from all sorts of various media. My studio is full of beautiful weathered artifacts that I've discovered on my travels. Collecting objects for my work is always fun. I never know what I'll find in the markets around the world. When I travel I photograph the everyday beauty all around me. The old patina of the walls, a carved window in a stucco building, even the tile that lines the streets. All of these things inspire my work. When I get back to the studio I use these images in my collages, assemblages and my artist books.

Experiencing other cultures through images, colors and objects informs all my work. I'm so intrigued by peoples' history,their stories, the layers of time, the memories and emotions that make up our world. In my work I try to create a visual narrative that evokes a personal response in the viewer. I'm just back from a wonderful trip Switzerland. Where we started in Zurich to see the Picasso show at the Kunsthaus Museum...Amazing! Then off to the Alps where the temperature was just at freezing but it was warm in the sun, people had lunch outside! Everything in Switzerland seems like a fairytale, the quite clean trains run on time, the houses are all trim and painted in lovely colors, and the mountains look like a picture postcard.

Artist Biography

Julie Shaw Lutts, a graduate of Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, is a collage, assemblage, and book artist who lives and works on the east coast. The artist scavenges flea markets, yard sales and gathers items on her travels to inspire her work. Old photographs, tintypes, handwritten letters, odd medical devices, vintage diaries, found objects, curious personal ephemera, and all kinds of mixed media are used to create her artist books, collages and constructions.

Julie has a deep respect for the stories to be found in history, and uses the antique objects she finds as touchstones to imagine fresh narratives throughout her work. Combining these historical mementos with her own photographs and images creates the foundation of her work, into which she then blends influences from contemporary culture.

Julie’s artist books, collages and assemblages are all one-of-a-kind works.. She has been called a “visual anthropologist”, as so much of her work explores layers of memory, identity, and personal histories through thoughtful visual narratives.