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Key Themes

Julia Fish: Bound by Spectrum is one of three exhibitions on view at DPAM that include themes of interdisciplinary and personal responses to architecture, geography, and notions of home, presented on the occasion of the Chicago Architectural Biennial. Fish's work comes from slow observation of domestic space and architectural detail and has emerged over decades of examining her home and studio. The paintings depict blueprints, lighting fixtures, stairs, floor panels, tiles and thresholds rendered through the language of abstraction. Colors used relate to a system devised by the artist to denote locations within the building and indicate the cardinal direction of the spaces she references. 

Language of Abstraction / Formal Elements of Painting / Observation of Light

Fish's work explores the nuances of color, shape, and line - a concern shared with geometric modernists such as Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers, Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly, Alfred Jensen, Sol Lewitt, Jo Baer, Alighiero Boetti, and Mary Heilman. Fish is also focused on the observation of atmospheric light and how the movement of light shifts one's perception. Studying the effects of light continues a tradition of intensive study by painters such as J.M.W. Turner and Claude Monet (view Turner's work and Monet's Haystack studies at the Art Institute of Chicago).  

Contemplating Domestic Space

Slow Observation

Search the library catalog WorldCat Discovery to explore resources related to the exhibition.

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