Currant, 2022
mixed media, found furniture and objects, sailboat sail, fabric, plaster, acrylic paint, LED lights
photos by Jacob Koestler
Julie Schenkelberg: CURRANT
On view October 21 – December 16, 2022
Julie Schenkelberg’s mixed-media installations begin with furniture, dishware, textiles, and marble, combined with concrete, resin, and construction materials, to transform notions of domesticity, and engage with the American Rust Belt’s legacy of abandonment and decay. Her work seeks to excavate a bygone history embodied in abandoned buildings, objects, lives, jobs and stories. The installations transition the past into new stories of remembrance and healing. Her current work is informed by research in Italy about ruins of older civilizations and her interest in medieval early religions, alchemical symbiology, and mystic sacred geometry in drawings and in architecture.
CURRANT explores Julie Schenkelberg’s experience in returning home to Cleveland. A play on the word “current,” the exhibition speaks to her present moment with the installation forming a massive altar dedicated to the past and present in addition to the mysterious, restorative and transformative future. Schenkelberg weaves imagery of her own history through an archeological collection of castings of plants, religious symbols, abandoned buildings, and family dishware while paying homage to the history of place with castings of tombstones found in Lakeview Cemetery. The title, CURRANT, also references the violet colored berry which is said to provide assistance to those in fearful situations, especially when facing the self in being truly alone. The violet black color of the berry, a unifying element found throughout her installation, is also known as a curative pigment with high vibrational healing qualities in spiritual circles.
Julie Schenkelberg first exhibited at The Sculpture Center in 2014 as a W2S (now Revealed) Early Career Exhibition artist. Eight years later, Julie is the first artist-in-residence at The Sculpture Center working in the Davis Art Foundation’s fabrication studio, where she has created the work for CURRANT. This exhibition marks Julie’s Erie Tribute, her first solo show in Ohio since 2016.
About Julie Schenkelberg
Julie Schenkelberg’s work has been exhibited at venues including the Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art (Pittsburgh), the Museum of Art and Design (New York), UNTITLED Miami Beach (Miami), Asya Geisberg Gallery (New York), David Klein Gallery (Detroit), the University of Akron Meyers School of Art (Akron), The Chautauqua Institution (New York), Plug Projects (Kansas City) and Prosjektrom Normanns (Norway). She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs (NY), Art Omi (NY), Arte Ventura (Spain), Volterra-Detroit Foundation Residency (Italy), The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, (Omaha, NE) and SiTE:LAB (Grand Rapids, MI) among many others. A four-time recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, she holds a BA in Art History from the College of Wooster, OH, and MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY. A native of Cleveland, OH, her work is also influenced by 18 years’ experience as a professional scenic painter in the theater. She is currently represented by Asya Geisberg Gallery, NY.
