Julia Healy Getting Dark
Juia Healy began mixing an unusual batch of materials not meant for painting at a time when most conventional mixing of people was about to become limited. She had received a grant from Arts Mid-Hudson in January of 2020 that would result in, “It’s Not Dark Yet, But It’s Getting There: Metaphors Meet the Natural (Covid) World,” a 7’x 15’ installation. It now covers much of a wall at UpFront Exhibition Space in Port Jervis until Dec. 25.
“It was a two-year childbirth,” said Healy. “It’s a visual metaphor with less obvious submeanings. I do trees with personalities and clues that render them metaphorical. Before this, I was doing indigenous trees from the last thousand years. It wasn’t winter, and it wasn’t dark, but as Covid hit, I couldn’t do happy bright green along with thoughts of politics and dying. This is what Covid meant to me and how people have handled it.”
A cement-ish powder mixed with the paint gives shapes texture that lift them a little above the flat surface, along with “fat” oil paint over “lean” acrylic, Healy said. But she avoided color, except a bit of blue.
“A day painting turned into a night painting,” said Healy. “The moment of color is gone. Green has become black. It’s dark but for a glint of moon.”
The trees express themselves in that slight light. She pointed out their characters.
“One tree reaches out but doesn’t connect, Another is broken and alone,” said Healy. “Another reaches out and brings others into a pod. A fourth tree’s branches grown inward, and the last has no contact but is open to possibility.”
The title of the piece comes from the Bob Dylan song, “Not Dark Yet,” from his 1997 album, “Time Out of Mind,” but Healy notes that he is now 80, “not dark yet, but getting there,” and death is her theme, after two friends died of Covid-19.
Healy lives in Port Jervis, in a large old Victorian house that she resurrected from shambles after moving from New York City. She had arrived there circuitously, after growing up in Elmhurst,Illinois and attending the University of Chicago, where she did her academic work. At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she became a part of the Chicago Imagist art scene, full of whimsical compositions and miscellaneous objects.
“We were a cohesive movement, about images, ideas, narrative and comic book culture, different from New York, with its abstract expressionism, minimalism and earth art,” Healy said. “We were a clique because we already had a gallery. I was making puffy, wrinkly things,” such as stuffed fabric faces.
Marrying a doctor and living in Africa and elsewhere removed her from that scene, although her work appeared in collections and shows ranging from the residences of Canadian officials to the New York Public Library and Chicago Museum of Modern Art. But for 15-20 years, she had no gallery, though she worked in many art forms—painting, drawing ceramics, printmaking, crochet, sewing, music and vegetarian cooking too. Her work, though often surreal, was never abstract.
Then, about two years ago, art collector and documentary filmmaker John Maloof encountered her work and recognized its roots among the Chicago Imagists. He brought Healy’s work to the attention of Scott Speh, who gave her a place in his Chicago gallery, Western Exhibitions.
Now she continues her art work while teaching at City College and Sussex Community College.
Of “It’s Not Dark Yet,” she says, “It was where my head was at. I felt happy to get it out.”
“It’s Not Dark Yet,” will be on display at UpFront Exhibition Space through Dec. 25, 31 Jersey Ave., Port Jervis. Open 1-6 p.m. , Friday-Sunday.
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