Julianna Foster

Lives and works in Philadelphia, PA, USA

Artist statement

My work approaches photography as both image and material. I’m interested in what happens when a photograph moves beyond documenting a particular location and becomes something I can physically shape. In my project Geographical Lore, I begin with images from deserts and coastlines in the American West to mountainous regions in New England. Back in the studio, I use these photographs as source material to build new environments. Through collage, assemblage, and re-photographing, the constructions are part observation and part construction. I work between analog and digital processes, allowing the materials, chance, and unexpected shifts to influence where the work goes. I’m drawn to landscapes that are continually changing through natural forces as well as human intervention. By taking photographs apart and rebuilding them, I create spaces that sit somewhere between what I encountered, what I remember, and what I imagine. The work reveals uncertainties and consider landscape as something continually changing rather than fixed.

Artwork