Articles

Poles Apart : Julia Holden

By Jody Cleaver

As part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, ‘Poles Apart’ is an experimental film and video exhibition, and will project Julia Holden’s latest piece, ‘Muse’, of her exceedingly prolific body of work.

Julia’s hybrid practice is build on a strong fine art base, which is painting referred by self-shot and composed video, which are then digitally transposed back into their original (video) order.

As a result, and after multiples of hundreds of separate oil paintings, is an animated, figurative and painterly film; that illustrates an engaging, ever-moving portrait; effectively delving into the precondition of ‘when is the ideal moment for a portrait…when we are continually in motion.’

While this lengthy process may seem daunting, Julia has been long involved in this large scale projection of painting, such as;  Joan 2008, Damien 2009, Jackson 2009, Handiwork II 2010, Painter 2011, and Muse 2011– (a Finalist for the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize) Her current work in progress The Philosopher is well underway at number 300, of an anticipated 600; Julia feels this scale to be natural, un-cramped, and finds the ‘rhythm of painting in a continuous way’, meditative and similar to a storyboard style format.

Her subject matter is reflective of ‘the profound and banal’, ‘the nostalgia of rituals’, and as we can see in this scale, format and method, painting is re-presented in manner that is both accessible and impressive…..We await eagerly the completion of The Philosopher.

Poles Apart, (curated by Natalya E. Maller), is exhibiting at Blindside, (Level 7, Room 14, Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston Street), 5-8 October:  Opening night 6-8pm on Thursday the 6th October.