Julia Dubsky

Fictions of Modesty

Part fig leaf (a symbol of modesty) — part ‘fig.’ standing for ‘figure’ — or abstract mark (‘ein Fleck’, ‘a stain’ in German) — in these paintings I have been dealing with expectations of dominance. The figure-ground relationship is complicated intuitively by reversals of perceptive depth. The difference between red (protrusive) and blue (recessive) lends itself well to such inversions and the restricted palette provides a uniforming putti to chew and remould over time and layers. The variety of pigments used have differing biases of temperature and hue that act like false friends in translation, wherein language doesn’t continue as expected, and the pace of interpretation is slowed. Art historical references, such as a detail of wallpaper from a painting by Edward Vuillard, act as a point of departure together with Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 19th century feminist short story, ”The Yellow Wallpaper”. The painting “Fictions of Modesty”, is named after a book by Ruth Bernard Yaezell with this title, that deals with the modest heroine in English literature from the late 17th to the beginning of the 20th century. The jacket illustration pictures a painting by James McNeil Whistler of a woman in a white dress. Her dark hair has a slight red glow that might have un-knowingly informed a similar slight colour halo around one of the white shapes, although in this instance it is green.

Fig Rabbit Duck (Kaninchen und Ente)

Julia Dubsky (b. Dublin) based in Berlin, graduated from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, in 2016. Currently in the MA class of Jutta Koether in HfBK Hamburg. Represented by Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London, after first solo exhibition, The Marshland Akimbo, in September 2019. Recipient of the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios Recent Graduate Residency Award in April 2017 until May 2018; Salon of Good Time solo residency exhibition in Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin (2018); Basic Space Artist Talk, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane (2018); Art School Alliance Goldsmiths residency (Spring 2020); Essay, hot sterility, published by Circa (2020); solo exhibition M/modesty, Amanda Wilkinson Gallery (December 2020) (LINK); group exhibition Sphinx of Black Quartz, Judge My Vow, Palfrey, London (opening 9.12.2020) (LINK).