ARTIST PROFILE
JULIE von LOTZBECK
JULIE von LOTZBECK (b. 1976)
The Danish artist Julie von Lotzbeck has a motto: “Life Is a Process”. The trajectory of her life and career certainly testify to constant self-reflection, self-evaluation, brave decision-making, and radical changes. She has certainly never stood still for a single moment.
She started teaching herself painting in 1990 at the tender age of 14 – from 1995, painting solely in oil on canvas. Rather than progressing – as might have been expected – to art school, in 1998 she started at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design, from where she graduated in 2003. In 2006, after two years working for an architecture firm in a suburb of Copenhagen, she embarked on a full-time career as an artist. This early period already reflects a diversity that would continue to be the hallmark of her artistic practice.
Her paintings, generally in large format, are lavishly colorful with layers of paint, from turpentine thin to creamy thick. They are redolent of late Monet – when his waterlilies started to verge on abstraction – or the geological structures of Per Kirkeby. As in the work of both those artists, nature and landscape are recurrent themes in the paintings of Julie von Lotzbeck.
Things took off pretty quickly and, for the next 9 years, her work featured in a never-ending succession of both solo and group exhibitions in major Danish galleries, commissions/purchases by corporate clients, and participation at Denmark’s major art fairs. Galleries included: Galleri Henrik Kampmann (Copenhagen), Galleri Elise Toft (Kolding], Galleri DGV (Svendborg), Gallerihuset (Copenhagen), Hans Alf Gallery (Copenhagen), Gallery Art Corner (Herning) and Gallery Hjort (Horsens). There were articles in major Danish magazines. She was clearly on her way.
However, even during this excitingly hectic period – maybe because it was so hectic – a period that also involved extensive global travel – around 2011, von Lotzbeck experienced what she refers to as “stagnation”. It was a period of searching, experimenting, and questioning. Inspired by the German philosopher/social critic Theodor W. Adorno, who believed that“The more complete a work of art is, the more the intentions fall away from it.”, she attempted to paint without intentions. This process continued. In a CV she wrote herself in 2021 (and revised this year), she refers to: “Painting and getting stuck”, “Falling into reflective spells – for the best”, “Silence”, “Turmoil, empty thoughts” and “Sprouting and growing”.
In 2016 – wait for it – she stopped painting!
The great Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) famously walked away from success and fame as a Surrealist sculptor. During World War II, in exile, he reinvented himself. He reappeared bearing sculptures the size of matchboxes. His colleagues thought he had lost his mind. Like Giacometti, von Lotzbeck disappeared from the art scene to take stock of where she was in her trajectory. For the following five reclusive years, she chose to neither exhibit nor sell. Her quest was to get to the core of her life – to understand the bricolage of elements that made her who she is – and to learn new modes of expression. She has a quotation – a mantra – that frames this period: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” It would also provide the title for more than one of her future works.
Finally, in 2021, she emerged from her meditative, exploratory chrysalis, and exhibited in the Galleri Christoffer Egelund’s group Summer Exhibition in Copenhagen. There were NO PAINTINGS. There were: three tree-stump sculptures – two in copper and one in sculpted brass; and nine different reliefs, featuring a wide range of striking media, used alone or in a spectrum of different combinations. One relief was solely in brass; the other eight all featured engraved glass, but each with its own added ‘ingredient’ – teak, mirror, concrete, wood, tinfoil, or paint.
Julie von Lotzbeck had well and truly reinvented herself. A common denominator to both the paintings and these new (post-2020) works is Nature and landscape. But the landscapes have been pared down, crystallized into craggy layers, whose complexity is a result of the materials and techniques she deploys.
Odense can celebrate the fact that Galleri Sandberg is presenting these totally unique, tantalizing works by an artist who has just entered a new chapter in her career – her “process” – and is clearly at an inspirational high, bursting with thrilling ideas that more than deserve our attention.
Nigel Warrington
January 2023
What inspires you?
Everything. But more specifically, contemporary life – the way we live right now – Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and news. Is anything going on now? I’m very in the moment. So, for example, when I see a Ninja movie, I want to be a Ninja. Anything that grabs me – I have such an intense impulse to create something around that. Not that a painting has to be about it. A painting has to work as a painting. Sometimes subject matter and painting are two completely different things.
What shaped you as an artist? Where did it all start? Was there art in your childhood?
Let’s start with childhood first. Not really, but yes. For example, my mother’s family started an orchestra in the little town we come from. My dad isn’t artistic at all. My parents have always been self-employed business people. But even in elementary school, I did some tests and the teachers said I should do something creative. I started studying industrial design at a vocational school in Graz, but didn’t finish because I moved to Denmark. And my dancing was creative too. What shapes me is time. The more time I spend on my art, the more I understand myself and my creative process. I’m my own shrink.
Did you have a formal artistic education? If so, where and how much did it make a mark on the artist you are today? If not, do you ever wish that you had been to art school?
At the school, which was full-time from 8 to 5, we had intensive drawing and painting classes. There was also photography and film. It was an incredible school. Unique. When you leave there at 18 or 19, you’re actually a qualified industrial designer or whatever.
What and who influences your creative practice?
For example, I’ll go to an exhibition at Kunsten [ed. Museum of Modern Art Aalborg], and one little detail might inspire a few paintings. Not directly. I process it first. Or maybe the shapes in some architecture I see on Instagram – or the phrases of a song, for example.
Does your home country or the place where you live influence your art?
Denmark definitely influences me, because I think art has a different value here than in Austria. People here go to museums and galleries and buy art – way more than in Austria. I used to think being a white artist growing up in Austria wasn’t very interesting. But now I’m revisiting my Austrian heritage because I think it’s interesting to use it in my art.
Where do your ideas come from? How do you hold onto and record your ideas? How do you develop them into art?
I don’t use sketchbooks or anything. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love tells a story of a poet having moments of inspiration while working in the fields – the whole ground is shaking. So she runs into the house and grabs a pen to write down the inspiration. Sometimes she doesn’t make it into the house. Sometimes she grabs the paper on her way out of the house and goes back out and tries to write her inspiration down, but it ends up back to front. What she thought was the beginning turned out to be the end. I can connect with that. If I’m driving or picking my up daughter from daycare and I get inspiration and the best idea ever, there’s not much I can do about it. So, I think: “Go and annoy someone else.” Hopefully, that person has the time to work with it. The best thing I can do is show up at the studio every day and work and hope that inspiration comes.
When you start a new work or project, do you plan what you’re going to create or do you improvise?
I don’t plan. I think planned things in art are mostly boring. When I start working, I try to be as free as possible and do what feels right. The ‘planning’ – the ‘mathematics’ of the process – happens as I work on the canvas or cloth. Even when I’m working on a big work. I could never do little sketches for a big work. You use your body in a different way and with different materials.
Can you tell us a little more about what you are currently doing? What techniques are you working with? Are there very specific ideas that you are trying to explore in your work?
I’m working on a lot of different pieces and seeing what works, and trying to build up a narrative between the works. I’m using acrylics, oils, spray, oil sticks, and different fabrics, so the next series of works will feature a lot of different materials and media. I’m still searching for the narrative. People will recognize it’s me. But I was never interested in making art that repeats itself. My goal for the next exhibition at Galleri Sandberg is to make the most innovative show possible. I like pushing boundaries. Shocking.
Do you enjoy reading? If so, what kinds of books? What are you currently reading?
I read children’s stories! Ha ha. But otherwise not much.
Do you listen to music? If so, what? Do you listen to music while you work?
All the time. My current favorite is J. Cole. He’s an honest rapper. It’s not like gangster shit. But I like that too. Next week it could be opera. It depends on the mood I’m in. Plus, when I’m working, the paintings kind of dictate the music they want,.
Do you have any hobbies? What do you do to relax when not working?
My work is my hobby. I might work on another series of clothes with the fashion designer friend I’ve worked with before. And I have a friend in footwear design. We met up at Art Miami and discussed a project. I’m ok about letting go. So, I paint on fabric and they cut it up to make the clothes. I love collaborating with other talented people. In fact, my one big ambition is to be the creative director of Louis Vuitton one day. But I’d still paint. You don’t have to give up one thing for another.
Who are your favorite artists – past and present? Why?
Right now I love George Condo. He’s fearless in his process. I like artists who don’t give a shit about whether it’s beautiful or ugly, or whether people like it or not. From the past, I love Picasso – and Basquiat – again because of his fearlessness. There’s another amazing artist Amoako Boafo. Beautiful. He’s an African artist now living in Vienna. Like Basquiat, he rocketed to fame almost overnight and soon got swallowed up by the commercial art world. But now it looks like he’s making some decisions to get back control.
Do you collect art? If so, describe some of your favorite works.
I have Frans Smit. I have Frederik Næblerød. I have Lasse Thorst. A little one. Ed Willis. There was a time I didn’t want to have any art on my walls. I like coming home to a clean space. But then you get engulfed in collecting. But I might take it all down again and create a little exhibition space here for the works, showing what has inspired me. We’ve never had exhibitions here before. An architect is in the process of moving out of the big central space. So, we could make a house within the house. It would be beautiful.
Do you enjoy traveling? Where have you traveled to? Has that influenced your work?
I love traveling. I traveled a lot with my parents when I was young and then when I was still a ballroom dancer – China etc. I don’t like traveling too much right now, because I don’t like being away from my daughter. Last December, Miami was incredible – the sun, the heat, the art – but I missed my family and my base.
Do you think art has an important role to play in the world?
I think that art and artists have an obligation to push boundaries. To talk about stuff that’s uncomfortable. To push boundaries in terms of the aesthetic and the subject matter. Art loses its role if it becomes stagnant and just a monetary thing. Otherwise, you should give up art and become a trader or something. The Status quo is death.