My name is Julia Gorman.
I'm a Melbourne based artist
I think of myself as a painter
because I studied painting, but
I make a lot of work: wall drawings,
sculptures, installations, light shades -
anything really.
But I think of myself more as a
painter because always the volume in the
work comes through color and the
materiality itself is always very thin
and kind of the least substantial thing
it can be while still presenting as an
object. So I want to have a sense of
substantiality to the object but I want
it to always have a lightness and a
sense that it's there but it
could be gone.
It's a transient kind of a thing.
So this work that I'm going to
make for the resource room here at the
MCA is going to be made of self adhesive
signwriters vinyl which I'm going to
hand cut and lay down on the floor.
I'm sensing that it's going to kind of flow
from just outside the space and into and
around the space so that's got a sense
of kind of lapping in and out of the
space. Because the space itself always
dictates the work. I look at the space
and then I kind of think about something
it reminds me of in nature or something
I might have seen that's got a similar
kind of movement which I then try to
bring back into my work. I'm interested
in a flow like the lines and the way the
colors cross and intersect. I like
flow but then I like a sense of
awkwardness of the work in the space.
There are parts where it doesn't fit properly:
there's mismatches of scale and
colour but then there are other parts where
everything flows easily.
I'm interested in stops and starts. Things
that don't fit into a space or try to
squeeze into a space
that isn't right for them.
And often you'll see in my work
a sense of a compression and
expansion. And that can be when a wall
drawing has to get through a doorway
and I can see that could happen
in this space. All the lines have
filled the room, but then they
have to cram together through
this door and then they can spread out
again. So that kind of thing does happen
again and again in the work.
I always start from a drawing
just drawing with a pencil,
and I work from the drawing.
I just do a lot of versions of a
drawing. I just do a lot of versions of
how it could be and then I decide on one
out of all those drawings.
Then you order all the vinyl, work out how
much you're going to need your order it
you have it all ready to go and then I
just cut it with scissors on the spot and
stick it down. So it's not cut beforehand
and the work itself actually ends up
being -- people think because in a
photo it looks like it's all just very
seamless strips of colour -- it's
actually like quite collaged.
It's just little bits that you can put down.
One person can lay it by hand.
Where the colours meet you've gotta hand
cut that with a knife to fit it all.
So it's like lots of little tiny bits.
There are some bigger bits
but a lot of the bits are just a little
collage and you just make a mistake or
if a bit isn't quite long enough you
just add another. It's all just
filled in. it's quite a handmade
looking thing when you see it
much more than you can see in a photo
where it looks like quite smooth.
It's an organic process but the material
itself isn't very organic.
It's plastic with glue on it.
I like a sense of hovering.
Like it's not settled yet.
It's still dynamic.
Things could still change
in the space and the drawing.