JULIE LAZARUS - ARTIST STATEMENT

CV

Julie Lazarus' glass sculpture takes its form from her training as an abstract painter.  In her own independent manner, she allows the color, form, light and movement of her adopted summer residence in Venice, Italy to permeate her work.  Mentored by craftsmen whose ancestral lineage parallels the history of glass (and in some cases, of Venice itself), Lazarus creates a fluid body of work that successfully captures brilliant color and movement.

Julie Lazarus' work results from her travels to Italy over the past eleven years. Her observations of light reflected from the water and buildings of Venice inspire her work. Starting with paintings of lush growths of grapevines and tree limbs framing landscape vistas, she sketches and paints, and translates her vision to abstract blown glass shapes using the uniquely colored rich glass that is only found in Murano.

Her first collection, the Giardini series, contrasts colorful spaces within bold black, blue or red lines. The lines become patterns that break the softness of the blue sky above, or the color of a building in the background. The shapes created by the positive and negative spaces become more organic and act as a visual aid to move the viewer's eye across the canvas or around and throughout the glass pieces. 

The Anima series employs a highly organic appearance, using ideas of spirituality and their transcendence.  The amorphous yet representative shapes she produced are surprisingly human or floral.  The series is distinguished in two ways - by pristinely clear and brilliant solid leaded glass forms, and by soft glowing shapes finished with sandblasted exteriors and highly polished silver shining from within the richly colored interior. - Micaëla