Julie Rafalski

Julie Rafalski (born 1981) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans drawing, collage and photography Julie examines architectural surroundings and how they are reconfigured through the process of memory. Her portfolio contains an eclectic range of meaningful abstract and modernist works. Of Polish-American descent, Julie grew up between the USA and Poland. She received a BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then an MFA from the Slade School of Art in London.

Julie Rafalski’s Style and Approach

Julie creates colour pencil drawings that depict remembered spaces (architectural interiors or places in nature) and explore the links between memory, imagination and perception. Her abstracted architectural structures are made of fragments of different spaces joined together in playful and unexpected ways. Multiple spaces and times can exist in one drawing. Colour is used to bring the work into the present moment of sensation and perception. Collage and its techniques of cutting out, displacing and juxtaposing images is key to her work, both as a process and a methodology. She creates images as unstable, fragmented archives composed of multiple spaces.

Exhibitions and Collections

Julie has exhibited internationally, with collective and solo shows taking place in Copenhagen, Warsaw, Berlin, Tel Aviv, London and Chicago, including at The Royal Academy Summer Show (2011) and the Liverpool Biennale (2006). Julie was shortlisted for the Derwent Art Prize in 2018, and currently has pieces in residence at several international public and private collections. The artist has also written a selection of prose and poetry.