ART CITIES:San Francisco-Julie Chang

Julie Chang is a San Francisco based artist who works primarily with painting and print making. Her work is influenced by textile design and patterns from various European and Asian cultures as well as pop cultural references. Ideas of identity and belonging are thematic throughout Chang’s work. Chang has been chosen to design public art projects for the San Francisco Transbay Transit Authority in conjunction with the San Francisco Arts Commission.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Hosfelt Gallery Archive

Using a visual vocabulary that includes European wallpaper patterns, Chinese textiles and contemporary graphic design, Julie Chang creates laser-cut acrylic chandeliers, graphic two-dimensional works, and painted floor murals. Her work explores the “Nature of identity as an imposed character”, and the way in which patterns serve as powerful and ubiquitous markers of class. For “New Works” her solo exhibition at Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco the artist presents a work created directly on the walls and floor of the gallery as well as a series of large-scale paintings on paper, drawing from sources like: African mudcloth, Japanese shibori, and Native American basket weavings. The patterns in woven textiles and baskets reflect a rich multiplicity of traditions, while the elemental forms in each are common to many cultures across the globe.  Similarly, the process of weaving embodies paradox in its unification of opposites:  the warp and the weft, one vertical and one horizontal thread, one stretched taut and one in undulating motion. As the artist says “My work investigates how identities are constructed and how (mis)understandings of both self and other might be resisted, subverted, and reimagined. Inspired by diverse sources – from wallpaper to weavings to genetic mutations and systems theory – my work utilizes a visual vocabulary that juxtaposes differing perspectives to provoke conversations about race, class, gender, and cultural commodification”. Taking her cue from the visual and technical components of weaving, Chang’s forms freely float and then gather and intertwine.  Shapes migrate and cross boundaries, transformed by encounters with other forms.  Arrivals, foreignness, dislocation, struggle and integration reference hidden histories both personal and universal. Chang’s works appear ambiguously patterned but a closer observation lends insight into her carefully crafted compositions of a variety of symbols, images, and designs. Chang’s California origin and Chinese heritage have certainly influenced the significant social themes addressed in her work, directly portraying a synergy between commodification and cultural practice, interlaced with her own personal experience.

Info: Hosfelt Gallery, 260 Utah Street, San Francisco, Duration: 10/12/16-21/1/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sat 10:00-17:30, Thu 11:00-19:00, http://hosfeltgallery.com