BIO

Julia R. Gallego (Cantabria, 1986) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Madrid. She studied Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid and specialized in printmaking at Camberwell College of Arts in London. She has worked with leading printmaking and publishing studios such as Thumbprint Editions in London and Ogami Press in Madrid. She has also led printmaking courses in private studios in both Madrid and London, as well as at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Her work has been recognized with awards such as the Open Portfolio 2019 and the Open Portfolio Balmaseda 2021, which have granted her the opportunity to participate in the International Printmaking Fair in Bilbao, undertake a residency at BilbaoArte, and receive a scholarship for the intaglio printmaking course at the International Centre for Contemporary Printmaking in Betanzos.

In 2022, she earned a Master’s degree in Art Therapy from the Complutense University of Madrid, an experience that has deeply influenced her art practice. Currently, she stands within three disciplines, as an artist, printmaker, and art therapist, -interwoven practices that enrich each other.

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ARTIST STATEMENT 

My practice expands across different media (printmaking, performance, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics) and has evolved throughout the years. My career as a printmaker has enabled a deep exploration of this medium in my own work and it is a language I keep returning to. My figurative work centers around the body, gender and sexuality and my abstract work explores pleasure, play and improvisation in the creative process. These two strands reflect different stages and the evolution of my practice.

 

OPENING OF THE BODY: THE VAGINA-WOUND

Initially, my art practice was led by a constant preoccupation with the figurative representation of the body in terms of biological sex, gender, sexuality and reproduction. It soon became a subjective journey of tracing back the historical and cultural meanings ascribed to the female body in Western (Christian) culture.

Religious and medical references gradually became coagulated into a personal artistic universe centered around a primordial ‘opening’ of the body, a wound-vagina charged with symbolic meaning. This carnal orifice-cut draws connections between dissection and surgical practices, Christian themes of creation and sacrifice, Jesus’ wounds and the female sexual-reproductive organs.

My work involved an exploration of this imagery, particularly in medieval iconography, as well as a feminist critique, aiming to unveil women’s sexuality as the deepest taboo in Christian culture, that which underlies patriarchal expressions of creation and sacrifice. My work aimed to unmask these male appropriations of female reproductive power and to reveal that the female body has been transformed, usurped and symbolized into male ritualistic versions that position themselves as superior and original. This investigation coalesced into the academic article The Dissector’s Cut, the Wound and the Orifice: Seeing Ron Athey’s Performances Through a Cultural Anatomy of the Vagina, as well as a body of work that came to being through expanding printmaking practice into performance. Key works from this period include Occult and Carnal Portal.

 

TURNING TOWARDS THE PLAYFUL AND EROTIC

In the works that followed this period, medical and religious references became less explicit, as I continued my exploration into the opening of the body, now as a playful, uncanny and erotic site of encounter with otherness and the unknown. The erogenous and reproductive body has now become fundamentally alien, supernatural and ambiguous, eliciting reactions of curiosity, wonder, shock and fear. This work is characterized by an exploration into ambiguous and non-binary genitalia and is influenced by Shunga (Japanese erotic prints) and psychoanalysis. Some pieces that illustrate this shift are the series Show Me Yours I’ll Show you Mine and Brotó.

Nature soon became not only the landscape and backdrop in the celebration of the ambiguous and exuberant body, but the inseparable ecosystem to which it belongs. The body and nature are thus the same, an ever growing, overflowing, uncontrollable and unknowable site of constant fascination.

From a formal perspective, this work shows a progression from using primarily red to diving into a world of colour, and an expansion into other media like painting (La Mantis de las Cluquillas) and sculpture (Botanical Genitalia).

 

EXPERIMENTATION, COLOUR AND PLEASURE

Psychotropicalia was a pivotal series that marks the evolution into abstraction in my work, fueled by a desire to experiment and incorporate chance into the creative process. I began to work in a more intuitive way, letting things unfold in the making and colour took centre stage.

This was not a clear-cut rupture with my previous figurative practice, as bodily and natural elements populated layer upon layer of imagery. But there were some significant changes. Previous work pointed towards a dissolution of the differentiation between body (figure) and nature (background), and here they become completely merged.

There is also a shift in relation to the subject of pleasure. In my figurative work pleasure features within a celebration of sexuality as a natural, uncontrollable and elusive source of enjoyment, play and wonder. As abstraction entered my image making, pleasure became the driving force of the creative process itself. The pure enjoyment of making became far more important than the resulting image. It was as if I became the vehicle of visual pleasure, and the resulting image captured that experience that became solidified in the image for the viewer to enjoy too. This becomes very apparent in Croma.

Psychotropicalia was the transitional step in this process because with this series I began to experiment and explore more, whereas my previous figurative work was planned ahead. Letting go of knowing what I was going to make, how I was going to make it, and a desire for a particular outcome, was liberating. In this new way of making there was no foreseeable result, which provoked the constant revealing of new unpredicted outcomes, savouring the feeling of being surprised every step of the way, as well as feelings of excitement, anticipation and curiosity.

I realise now that this is one of the intrinsic characteristics that pulls me towards printmaking, to that moment of intensity where the image from the plate is transferred onto the paper and becomes transformed.

Of course, there isn’t a stark dichotomy between these two processes, one more figurative and planned, the other more intuitive and abstract, since in my art making, even if there is planning ahead, I have always allowed and enjoyed letting the process itself unfold inviting unpredictable changes.

During this time, I began to explore and incorporate collage and drawing in my prints, as can be seen in My Heart Is On Fire and Canesú.

 

THE JOY OF MAKING AND CONNECTION

In my recent practice the main references in my work are not external, they come from my inner engagement with the unknown that happens during making. Art therapy has probably been the biggest influence in shaping my current creative process, with its emphasis on process over result, art making as self-care, letting oneself go, sensory enjoyment, and play.

Improvisation and inviting chance into the art making experience entails an openness to receive whatever happens, a letting go of control, and a dissolution of the self: loosing oneself through an action/experience fueled by enjoyment. The introduction of watercolour, as can be seen in Croma and Debajo de las Piedras, comes as no surprise, as it is a fluid medium that is less controllable and enables and facilitates the appearance of the unexpected.

My current approach is also influenced by other deeply enjoyable experiences in my personal life such as partner dancing and capoeira. These two disciplines have in common the connection and improvised interplay and co-creation with the other. Mutual engagement provides a world of possibility and the creation of something that in the union of self and other, goes beyond us.

My latest abstract images reflect an openness outward, a curiosity to explore and engage with the world, and a desire to connect with the other. Something that was already also present in previous as well as more recent figurative work such as Óyeme en tus Sueños and Toca Mis Sueños.

Without conscious intention, the product of my intuitive and improvisational process results in images that are often associated to marine, biological and cellular life. One of the texts that I wrote for my lattest exhibition Debajo de las Piedras (Under the Rocks), titled Recuerdo (Memory), accurately puts these feelings into words (here translated into English):

Summers of a young girl at the beach savouring the warmth of the sun and the salt of the sea on her skin. Time frozen in happiness, she spent hours and hours walking along the edge where the water meets the sand, leaving behind wet, glistening treasures. Carefully selecting shells and stones for her vast private collection.

Then the water would call her and she would plunge into a dream, the sea embracing her, enveloping her completely in its delicious coldness. She would leave the sun behind and dive, for nothing in the world was better than venturing into the depths. She continued her search for treasures further deep, stretching her hands until they touched the seafloor. Each rock awaited her, and it was impossible to guess the surprises it hid.

She would choose one and lift it, the sand swirling around, and only when it settled could her eyes clearly see the rock’s hidden face and its bed on the sand floor. Sometimes, there was nothing interesting to be found, but other times, all sorts of creatures would appear, wriggling and crawling desperately for shelter to hide once again.

Lifting rocks was her favorite game, there was always another rock to turn over, a new organism to discover.

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 | Debajo de las Piedras, Centro Cultural Doctor Madrazo, Santander
2023 | Croma, Café con Palabras, Cabezón de la Sal, Cantabria
2014 | The Perceptible Tactility of my own Body, The Gate Theatre, London

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 | Open Itinera Argentina, touring exhibition, Argentina
2019 | Open Itinera, touring exhibition, Basque Country
2019 | Festival of Print, East London Printmakers, London
2019 | Mostyn Open 21, Mostyn Gallery, Wales
2019 | Quid Pro Quo (duo show with Paul Wye), Brixton Library, London
2014 | A Matter Of (exhibition & live printmaking), 198 Gallery, London
2014 | The Other Art Fair, Ambika P3 Gallery, London
2014 | La Petite Mort et la Grand Hysterie (curated by Gabriella Daris), Blacks, London
2012 | Bite: Artists Making Prints, Mall Galleries, London
2012 | Well Pressed, St Martins-in-the-Field Crypt Gallery, London
2011 | Ex/Implicit Sexual Organs in Art, Complutense University of Madrid
2011 | Hong Kong Graphic Art Fiesta 2011, Hong Kong Open Print Shop
2010 | Shades of Green, Vestry House Museum, London