PRESS RELEASE September 1, 2007
WHAT: TALKING ROOM, a new series of drawings by Julie Speed
WHEN: November 23 – Feb., 2007
Private viewings by appointment Oct 5-7
OPENING RECEPTION: November 23, 2007 6-8pm
WHERE: GALLERI URBANE/MARFA
212 San Antonio ST
POB 1506
Marfa TX 79843
CONTACT:
Ree Willaford
432.729.4200
art@galleriurbane.com
www.galleriurbane.com
*Additional images and Press images available upon request.
Galleri Urbane/Marfa...announces “TALKING ROOM” an installation of Julie
Speed's†large new†graphite and gouache drawings on Arches watercolor paper.) I
enjoy working in pencil but it’s usually the under-drawing for the oils so it’s
lost almost as soon as I find it,” says Speed, when asked about her temporary
departure from painting. “Last year I did a series of small pencil and oil
drawings of heads which became the book HEADS. This year I was ready
to come back to it and give the heads some hands.”
The images in TALKING ROOM are both ethereal and haunting. In “Fat Chance”
a corpulent infant flails his chubby arms and wails in grief. In “The
Persistence of Lunacy” an old man wields a missile launcher over one shoulder,
using a forearm crutch to stabilize his meager frame. As with all of the figures
in the series, the infant and the old man are silent, muted by an inaudible
medium, and yet they are also nearly deafening with the words coming out of
their ouths.
“After finishing the first three or four of these pieces I lined them up on the
studio floor and saw that they were talking to each other,” says Speed. “That
interested me so I kept going. As more of them entered the conversation I
started thinking of them as an installation and wanted to crowd them into a
small plain white room where it seemed they would be louder. †I enjoy imagining
what they’re saying but even more I enjoy imagining what other people imagine
they’re saying.”
The dialogue is seductive, as are the beautiful lines and bizarre imagery that
fills the room and follows you home. They seduce you with the sheer mastery of
Speed’s technique and her signature zingers – the extra eye, the third row of
teeth, the harrowing asymmetry. As with Speed’s paintings, there is a
dichotomous quality to the work. It is playful and solemn, pulling you back and
forth between characters, as if they’re telling you which drawing to listen to
next.