Julia Rommel
Julia Rommel
MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique is very pleased to reopen after the summer break with a presentation by New York-based artist Julia Rommel.
Rommel’s distinctive abstractions are exquisite combinations of method, material and color. Deceptively minimalist, her bright colorscapes bare the marks of their construction. Stretched, painted, then unstretched, folded, stapled and layered together, her canvases subtly illustrate the process behind their making.
Unique to Rommel’s practice is her exploration of method as subject, and failure as a catalyst. Traditionally peripheral elements of the canvas, such as staples and creases in raw linen, are the starting point of her compositions. She yields control to the material’s imperfections and variations, and by effectively building the works like sculptures, underscores the inherent materiality of painting. The methodical and intuitive back and forth between construction and deconstruction, control and intuition are the cornerstone of her expressive abstractions.
Importantly, for Rommel failure is not an obstacle but an opportunity, an essential building block. Even if they are not visible, the removed, covered or destroyed elements that constitute her painting’s former first layers are still present in the work’s overall composition. Up close, the artist’s hand - unapologetic mark making, layering, and treatment of surface also becomes visible in the richly textured coats of paint.
As harmonious as they are brightly colorblocked, Rommel’s minimalist, controlled abstractions pulse with depth and a sense of layered perspectives. Brimming with rich color slabs, each painting reflects Rommel’s relentless creative process nurtured by the joy of physical labour that she pours into these works.
Rommel’s creative process is characterized by simultaneously working on multiple paintings, a method that amplifies the layered complexity of her compositions. This intricate dance between materials and optical space finds a counterpart in her evocative titles, anchoring the work in a narrative dimension.
Her explicit engagement with titles and implicit texts, as showcased in her 2015 book “Around Woman,” adds an intimate, personal layer to her art, distinguishing it from the stoicism often associated with Minimalism.
At MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique, Rommel presents new works from 2024, and her largest single panel work to date.
The Artist
Julia Rommel (b. 1980 in Salisbury MD, lives and works in New York) received an MFA from American University in Washington D.C.
Recent solo and two- person exhibitions include: Uncle, Bureau, New York (2022); Long Leash, Overduin & Co., Los Angeles (2020); Fall Guy, Standard (Oslo), Oslo (2019); Candy Jail, Bureau, New York (2019); Twin Bed, Bureau at Tanya Leighton, Berlin (2018); Stay-at-Home Dad with Mathew Cerletty, Standard (Oslo), Oslo (2017); Two Italians, Six Lifeguards, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield (2015). Her work is in the collections of the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; KADIST, Paris and San Francisco; Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.