“I've never liked really obvious humor, but I don't like serious melodramatic work either. When I used to try and do images like Sally Mann, with a lot of drama and mystery to them, I could never take myself that seriously, so I'd add some detail that would take it somewhere else, away from the drama that just wasn't me.”
Julie Blackmon was born in 1966 in Springfield, Missouri, where she currently lives and works. Studying art at Misssouri State University, she became interested in the photography of Sally Mann and Diane Arbus. Leaving college before finishing her degree, years later Blackmon turned to photography as a mother of three. She used her domestic experiences as a focus of her early work, while also pulling from 17th-century tavern scenes portrayed by Dutch and Flemish painters. Her current work is heavily centered around the people and places in her small community.
Blackmon's photographs have been shown in a number of exhibitions and can be found in the permanent collections such as the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA; George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, NY; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, WA; Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; and The Walt Disney Corporation, among others. She has been included in exhibitions at institutions including The Fotografiska Museum, New York, NY; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, NH; Biggs Museum of American Art, Dover DE; Houston Center of Photography, Houston, TX; and many more.
Selected Collections:
The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
JP Morgan Chase Art Collection
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, WA
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Midwest Photographers' Project, Chicago, IL
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, WA
Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, IA
University of Arkansas, Little Rock, Ark
The West Collection, Oaks, PA
Walt Disney Corporation
Monographs:
Homegrown, Radius Press, 2014
Domestic Vacations, Radius Press, 2008