Julia Purdy

Lives and works in Boston, MA

Artist statement

I am a Boston-based painter working primarily in oil and acrylic. Sometimes I begin a painting from my own ideas. Other times, I receive a highly detailed internal image of a finished painting before I begin. I see its scale, medium, color, and composition, and sometimes its title or other related information. I then work to translate that image directly onto the canvas. Even when I begin with my own ideas, an image, title, or phrase may arise as the work develops. I document these experiences contemporaneously in studio notebooks, recording what I see, hear, or understand before and during the making of a painting. The notebooks preserve a stage of the work that would otherwise remain invisible. Through painting, I give visible form to experiences that are not accessible through ordinary sensory perception.

Artwork