Artist of the day: Artist of the day, September 8: Julie Blackmon, American photographer (Missouri )

Friday, September 8, 2017

Artist of the day, September 8: Julie Blackmon, American photographer (Missouri )

Julie Blackmon (1966) is a photographer who lives and works in Missouri. Blackmon's photographs are inspired by her experience of growing up in a large family, her current role as both mother and photographer, and the timelessness of family dynamics. As the oldest of nine children and mother to three, Blackmon uses her own family members and household to "move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives."

The stress, the chaos, and the need to simultaneously escape and connect are issue that she investigate in her body of work. We live in a culture where we are both “child centered” and “self-obsessed.” The struggle between living in the moment versus escaping to another reality is intense since these two opposites strive to dominate. Caught in the swirl of soccer practices, play dates, work, and trying to find our way in our “make-over” culture, we must still create the space to find ourselves. The expectations of family life have never been more at odds with each other. These issues, as well as the relationship between the domestic landscape of the past and present, are issues she have explored in her photographs. She believe there are moments that can be found throughout any given day that bring sanctuary. It is in finding these moments amidst the stress of the everyday that her life as a mother parallels her work as an artist, and where the dynamics of family life throughout time seem remarkably unchanged. As an artist and as a mother, she believe life’s most poignant moments come from the ability to fuse fantasy and reality: to see the mythic amidst the chaos.