Our featured artist is Julie Brixey-Williams is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors and holds a PhD from the University of Reading (2022). She has been awarded several place-responsive residencies, works extensively in collaboration and her works are held in collections in UK and USA.
1 - Could you explain your practice?
I am a contemporary sculptor, performer and edge-dweller, making artworks that layer stories about places - a process that I term A Labour of Attentiveness. My resulting multi-disciplinary process of attentive listening, movement investigation, photography, playful intervention and assemblage aims to navigate our dynamic relationship with things and structures, via co-created works. I think of my process as a form of visual choreography of spatial remains. These spatial remains are developed and re-sited to become gallery works or re-installed into new sites (including artist bookworks) that contribute to new layered readings for the viewer. In 2022, I completed a practice-as-research PhD (University of Reading), investigating this navigational and material relationality with place, focussing on systems operating in the Archway communities that psychiatrist R.D Laing established in the 1970s.
2 - Is art relevant today?
Artist are independent thinkers with the ability to make creative connections or shine a light on new perspectives. We are confident and motivated to step outside of the accepted norm to make visible statements - so I feel our role is more important than ever in our current shifting world.
3 – We are always asked what other artists influence us, we want to know what art you don’t like and which influences you?
Golly I always hate this Q! I return often to the dance works, land art, sculpture and performance of the 1970s – a vibrant time when artists were testing the boundaries of what each discipline could be – as I am drawn to re-versioning. Contemporary Asian calligraphy has also always interested me since I lived in Hong Kong, with its relationship with body gesture and mark, that is transferable to performance. When I discovered Miranda Tufnell and Chris Crickmay’s book Body Space Image during my MA it felt like I was coming home. They have had a big influence on the way I use objects as scores for performance, and I feel very privileged to I have worked with them both since. Chris was in my PhD exhibition PLACEing Objects and has been always very supportive.
Overall, I am intensely curious so try to look at all artworks with an open mind and with thoughts of what I might learn from it, even if I don’t emulate its visual content, as even purely pretty decorative work can be admired for its technical craftmanship.
As my journey has included textile and performance, I do lean towards objects that or paintings that communicate to my senses, but the best work also shares a concise intellectual engagement with the making. I am particularly drawn to works that achieve this with edited simplicity – as this is something I am always trying to achieve in my own work.
4- If you could go back 10-20 years what would you tell your younger self?
To believe that the small things I do have value - so to give them more space and let them out of the studio. To linger at moments of achievement and fruition - as creatives it is so common to move on to the next thing without celebrating or allowing ourselves to savour the good stuff. I would also reassure myself that my persistence, the steps I will take and the questions I will ask will eventually yield the future I want.
5 – If you could go forward 10-20 years what do you hope to have done or not done?
Like most artists I hope that I will continue to be fit and healthy so I can keep developing my work and thinking as part of my natural curiosity to learn – it’s part of who I am. Most artists continue to change and develop their practices in some way as they move forward e.g. Matisse changed to paper cuts & Bourgeois used an assistant. Dancer Anna Halprin (1920 – 2021) who kindly lent me films in 2020 continued to support all kinds of multi-disciplinary artists, whilst retaining her joy in physical movement, even in later years when she was more limited. I’d like to think I could continue to foster new creative relationships that would really push me forward into new arenas for thought and making ….and mostly to get up every day with the aim of being physically engaged with the world.