Julia McLaurin: ICONIC
- Fri, Feb 3, 2023 - Sat, Mar 18, 2023 9 - 5 PM
- Friday, Feb 3, 2023 6pm - 9pm Opening Reception: 6 - 9 PM
Gallery 100 at The Silos at Sawyer Yards1502 Sawyer Street
Julia McLaurin is an artist, photographer, and sculptor based in Houston, Texas. Born in New York, she moved to Texas at the age of 5, creating at a young age at the Glassel School of Art in Houston. While she obtained undergraduate and Master's degrees in Psychology and Biology at the University of Texas and the University of Houston, McLaurin always found herself drawn to art and visual expression. McLaurin experiments with photomontage, enhanced by her formative training in 4-color printing processes, as well as her true passion--ceramics--combining vintage and modern imagery with whimsical and fantastical ideas. She draws inspiration from the playful, while also pulling from iconography and Western pop culture. McLaurin is passionate about bringing the world's beauty from the mundane, into the surreal. ICONIC features a series of ceramic emojis, large-scale food, and digital images, all unpacking our modern obsessions with internet culture, the language and nuance behind conical aspects of society like emojis, memes, e-celebrities, and the impact of social media. Through a playful critique of our digital realities, McLaurin's work provides icons, perhaps effigies reflecting the air of religiosity around our preoccupation with pop culture.
The exhibition runs February 3rd through March 18th, 2023. An opening reception will take place February 3rd from 6-9 pm, with light bites and refreshments.