Julie Beck
About the Artist
Originally from Upstate New York, Julie Beck attended Roger Williams University in Rhode Island where she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics. After a 10 year career in graphic design/ video editing with continued self-taught artistic development, a move to Massachusetts introduced her to the Academy of Realist Art, Boston. Finding technical training in her 30s catapulted her work to a new level. This became the catalyst for a complete life overhaul. Since then, Julie has become an instructor as well as the Assistant Director of ARA Boston.
Julie creates work with a wide range of subjects including narrative still life paintings and the occasional animal/figurative works. Her interest lies in exploring and testing boundaries of reality, rules, and the interaction between the paint and viewer. Julie’s work can be found in private collections throughout the US and internationally.
“Through still life and portraiture, I use painting to create accessible work that relataes the innate desire to connect. By manipulating design, composition, and narrative, I am able to intimate ideas that are either preconceived or find themselves in the process. Whether poetic or polemical, my work strives to leave an impact on viewers that leaves them asking questions about the connections we find around ourselves.
My paintings are representational in nature, but often surreal in composition and design. They are both familiar and unexpected. While grounded in reality using both scale and tromp l’oeil realism, I play with the viewers experience of both the two dimensional plan of the painting surface and three dimensional space it implies. I intend for each viewer to have an individual experience that evolves over the time. The longer you look, the more unfolds.”
Julie’s Favorite Artefex Panels
“My work can be incredibly detailed, so I do not want a ton of texture getting in the way. However, I am also not a fan of super smooth surfaces. I like the weave of the canvas to do some work for me in creating certain textures or effects. This recipe makes me very very picky. I trained on a smooth oil-primed linen canvas panel. I would purchase these wood panels and have to use a circular saw to customize the size and make sure the weave was going in the direction I liked. What a pain!! Over time, I felt like the quality of those panels began to drop so I spent a year or so trying almost every panel out there. Some were too textured, some the texture was too regular, some were too smooth, and many of these were just junky.
I landed the jackpot when I found out Artefex offers LITERALLY the same canvas I love adhered to ACM. The Artefex 538 panel is exactly what I’ve been looking for. The ACM is an easy “score and snap” means of modification. Not only is the ACM more durable and easy to modify, but it’s lightweight and great protection for my work. Even at larger sizes, Anton and his team work with me to create the same panel with specific weave directions. And for even larger work, they are able to adhere the canvas to a honeycombed acm panel… allowing for lightweight rigid options at larger sizes. Easy to frame, easy to ship. Now I can get back to focusing on what I really want to do… paint!!”