On Tuesday 2 September, our Year 11 Visual Arts students were gifted a rare visit to a working artist’s studio. Julia Gutman is a multidisciplinary artist who works predominantly with textiles but also paints, writes and makes films. Her figurative works, often large-scale, are captivating in their layered, stitched textures depicting self, others and relationships. All the materials used in her works are pre-loved, collected from op shops, family or friends. Julia’s textile and paint portrait of singer Montaigne, entitled Head in the sky, feet on the ground, won the Archibald Prize in 2023, when Julia was just 29 years old.
Over the course of an hour, Julia generously shared her philosophy and insights into her practice with our Year 11 students, who are about to embark on creating their HSC body of work. As she spoke, it was easy to understand why this young artist has already carved out an extremely successful career for herself. Julia has a freedom of expression and organic approach to her work, which is very much about the process rather than the end result. ‘The freedom to create is a core value for me,’ she said, sharing her practice of constantly sketching, creating huge crazy mind maps, sewing layer upon layer, while drawing on the everyday inspiration of life and relationships to inform her work. Her works are comprised of thousands of stitches, both machine and hand-made. But once made, she never undoes a stitch even if she changes her mind. ‘Once I’ve made that gesture, then I have to live with it,’ she said, and goes on to incorporate that into her finished work.
Julia encouraged the girls to embrace a sense of freedom and an interrogation of what they love in life, to help shape their ideas at the beginning of the HSC body of work process. She encouraged them to take risks, ‘use yourself as the metric’ and to always ‘make your way out of a problem rather than think your way out of it.’
Visiting the studio of Julia Gutman, on the eve of her departure to London to mount another major exhibition, was a real treat. We thank Julia, and studio assistant Mia, for their time and generosity hosting Year 11 Visual Arts.
