Hear a WRR interview with Julie Lazarus on the ART MATTERS show
About Julie Lazarus
Julie Lazarus’ most recent body of work includes oils on canvas and hand-blown glass vessels created during her recent visit to Venice. Julie Lazarus returned to Venice in July, marking her fourth year to work alongside master glassblowers on Murano, the small Venetian island recognized for its hand-blown glass. The glass studio is renowned for hand-blown creations that interpret the painter’s vision, in this case Ms. Lazarus’ vibrant paintings inspired by the light and the color of the landscape she experienced on this most recent trip.
Although abstract, Lazarus’ paintings are based on her observations while in Venice, her work is an abstract melding of the color and texture, the elegance and the rutty edginess of this glorious European city. As colors dance upon the canvas, one visualizes changes in the light, while the overlapping shapes suggest the landscape or architecture. Mixed-media works by Ms. Lazarus often combine painting with intaglio or wood block printing on delicate rice paper. These works created on paper are often mounted on canvas or mahogany panels, adding a unique physical characteristic to her work.
When speaking about her most recent paintings and their inspiration, Lazarus says, “Venice is a city greatly dependent on water transportation. These paintings are about what I saw traveling by waterbus and about walking through the streets of Venice. They are about getting up early in the morning to travel from St. Marks Plaza to the island of Murano, so early that I was the only one in the plaza with the pigeons.”
A native of New York, Lazarus received her B.A. from Hofstra University and a Masters Degree in Painting and Printmaking from the University of Tulsa. Lazarus’ works are included in the collections of the Belo Corporation, Onmicom, Standard Federal Bank, Continental Airlines and numerous other public and private collections. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Biennale Internazionale Del’ Arte Contemporanea in FLorence, Italy, the Contemporary Art Center in Fort Worth and the McKinney Avenue Contemporary in Dallas.