Julie Puma: Urgent Importance
OPENING RECEPTION | Wednesday, Sept. 2nd, 6:00 pm on zoom: https://ucdenver.zoom.us/j/99698022388
Showing | September 2 – October 26, 2020
My current work explores themes of technology and communication in an attempt to examine the possibilities and limitations of communication in the 21st century. The rise of the use of technological devices, immediacy of communications and options of how to communicate pose many questions:
· Have we become an urgent society and have we confused important communications with urgent communications?
· Are there chemical changes in the brain as a result of too much “screen time”?
· Are we creating addictions to technology?
· Has technology altered our sense of self within the context of our intimate relationships?
I am producing a work in progress that consists of both paintings and drawings. These paintings and drawings are collaborations between others; as we exchange photographs via Snap chat or we engage in Apple Face Time interactions. Messages exchanged via the above digital communications travel through our brain and memory very quickly. By painting and drawing images of technology I intend to challenge our relationship to the instantaneous communications of social media platforms.
Invasive social messaging from social media including but not limited to Snapchat create an overwhelming stream of information and images that demand attention and can feed an addiction to technology’s digital world. Facetime and Skype afford users instant views of each caller to the other, altering our own sense of self through a digital screen. My drawings and paintings capture such fleeting social interactions to offer an opportunity for reflection on the meaning of this urgent barrage of imaging and messages. My artwork provides a contemplative view of social media to craft a bridge to capture the nuance of ephemeral electronic images and messages.
Urgent Importance as an exhibit reminds the viewer that reaction to the current tsunami of images, and messages can be slowed, questioned, and while kept in the moment, offer reflection.
A look inside the gallery
Press
ARTISTS ARE THE VOICE: URGENT IMPORTANCE
RMCAD – Kristin Boreanaz
Urgent Importance Opens Virtually and In-Person at the Emmanuel Art Gallery, September 2
CAM – CU Denver
Colorado Creatives: Julie Puma
Westword – Susan Froyd