JULIE GREEN

Holding Orange for Jason Strong, 2018
First Meal series
acrylic on Tvyek, 47 x 35 inches

After 15 years in prison, exoneree Jason Strong mentions a waitress bringing a gift of an orange, and holding it for 40 minutes before eating it, Strong’s first orange in eight years.  The full interview is included in the painting’s upper right and Green incorporates the state bird and flower on the plate border.

Blueberries Handfed to Julie Rea, 2018
First Meal series
acrylic on Tvyek, 35 x 47 inches

Julie Rea’s first meal consisted of a potluck at friend’s house with an abundance of fresh fruit. Blueberries are Rea’s favorite fruit and mentions enjoying them, handfed by a close friend. Of course, there is no fresh fruit in prison.

Denny’s, 2018
First Meal series
acrylic on Tvyek, 34 x 46 inches

A first meal at Denny’s ten years earlier remains vivid in this exoneree’s 2018 description: "T-bone steak, bacon, and pancakes. I had a knife in my hand to eat the steak. That was so strange and I felt uneasy, like I would get in trouble for having it." The meal included both breakfast and dinner foods, enjoyed with parents, aunt, and uncle.

Golden Corral: Everyone Deserves a Good Meal, 2019
First Meal series
acrylic, glow-in-the-dark thread and paint, silk thread, vintage piecework, one silver bead, on Tyvek; 36 x 47 inches

The Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions, Karen Daniel, attended the meal at Golden Corral with the wrongfully convicted individual. Daniel provided photos to Green, which influenced the painting. The motto for the Golden Corral buffet is “Everyone Deserves a Good Meal.”

Burger Downtown for Mark Clements, 2019
First Meal series
acrylic, found fabric, sewing, portion of Illinois state flag, glow-in-the-dark paint, on Tyvek; 47 x 36 inches

Mark Clements was released from wrongful conviction eighteen years prior; the meal was simply described as a hamburger downtown with mother, daughter and attorney. The painting includes glow-in-the-dark text about Jon Burge, a former police commander who eventually served four years in Federal prison for perjury and torture. Clements was convicted in 1982. Only sixteen at the time, he was tortured by police into making a confession. In 2009, Clements' sentence was vacated when court documents showed that details in his confession did not match the facts of the crime. These days, Clements is an activist working on prison reform.

Huwe Burton Said Truth Freed Me, Music Kept Me Sane While I Waited, 2019
First Meal series
acrylic and glow-in-the-dark paint on sewn Tyvek, 40 x 47.3 inches

The title of this work comes directly from the wrongfully convicted individual's statement to Green. Huwe Burton describes a first meal of squash lasagna at Red Rooter in Harlem. Burton was sixteen years old when police forced a confession for rape and murder of Burton's own mother. The officers involved are known to have used coercion to obtain false confessions in at least one other case. Green thanks Burton and the Innocence Project for sharing this food story.

Pepsi-Cola Monticello for Horace Roberts, 2019
First Meal series
acrylic and glow-in-the-dark logo on Tyvek, 38 x 47 inches

On release, Horace Roberts enjoyed a big Pepsi first thing, then Chick-fil-A at the airport on the way home. Roberts served more than 20 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. California Innocence Project provided this food story.

Purple Rain (after Galerie Des Modes), 2020
from the series Fashion Plate
acrylic, glow-in-the-dark paint and 22K gold leaf on gessoed Chinet plate, 10 x 10 x 0.25 inches

Always, 2020
from the series Fashion Plate
pigment made from industrial waste water sludge, acrylic, glow-in-the-dark paint and 22K gold leaf on gessoed Chinet plate
10 x 10 x 0.25 inches

Hoodie, after Lacourière, after Compte-Calix, 2019
from the series Fashion Plate
acrylic, glow-in-the-dark paint and vintage cotton on gessoed Chinet plate, 10 x 12.75 x 0.25 inches

Big Fish Eat Little Fish, 2018
acrylic on Tyvek
46 x 34 inches

Studio Visit, 2017
from the series Fashion Plate
acrylic and glow in the dark paint on Chinet paper plate
10.25 x 10.25 x 0.25 inches (not including frame)

My Silicone Love Doll: Flight Attendant, 2017
acrylic and glow in the dark paint on Chinet paper platter
10 x 12.75 x 0.25 inches

My Silicone Love Doll: Flight Attendant (shown in low light), 2017
acrylic and glow in the dark paint on Chinet paper platter
10 x 12.75 x 0.25 inches

My Silicone Love Doll: Flight Attendant (verso), 2017
acrylic and glow in the dark paint on Chinet paper platter
10 x 12.75 x 0.25 inches

To the Viewer, 2017
Gaijin, 2017
Lipsick, 2017
Russian Redder, 2017 (SOLD)
each: acrylic and glow in the dark paint on gessoed Chinet platter with fingerprint facsimile backstamp

Younkers French Room, 2018
acrylic and glow in the dark paint on Chinet paper plate
10.25 x 10.25 x 0.25 inches

Younkers French Room (in low light), 2018
acrylic and glow in the dark paint on Chinet paper plate
10.25 x 10.25 x 0.25 inches

My New Blue Friend Number Fourteen, 2015
airbrushed egg tempera on cradled wooden panel
12 x 16 inches
SOLD

My New Blue Friend Number Twenty-Eight, 2015
airbrushed egg tempera on cradled wooden panel
12 x 12 inches

My New Blue Friend Number Fifteen, 2015
airbrushed egg tempera on cradled wooden panel
12 x 16 inches

An Embarrassment of Dishes, 2015
cobalt blue pigment, 7-Up and simple syrup, painted and kiln fired on a 1961 set of Noritake inherited from the artist’s grandmother
functional service for 12

Champagne for Kristine Bunch, 2018
First Meal series
acrylic on Tvyek , 47 x 34 inches

Kristine Bunch describes meal of seafood, fresh vegetables, and champagne and adds “It was exciting but very scary. It was just unreal, a moment snapped out of time, like a dream that I expected someone to come snatch."

Green met Kristine Bunch at The Last Supper exhibition in 2015, and Bunch's meal was the first Green depicted. To suggest the passage of time, Green references a Utopic, Victorian flow blue transferware. Unless stated otherwise, all food stories are generously provided by exoneree and collaborators at Center on Wrongful Convictions, Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University.

Pizza Pennant, 2018
First Meal series
acrylic on Tvyek, 46 x 36 inches

A meal of pizza with family and friends after spending twenty-two years in prison wrongfully convicted of murder. Too excited to eat, the exoneree mentions being very, very happy to be home with family, and Green includes these words in the border. Green sees First Meal paintings as flags; as pennants of loss.

Golf to Red Lobster, 2018
First Meal series
acrylic on Tvyek, 42.5 x 33.5 inches

Golf Digest’s 2012 story on a New York inmate’s artwork depicting golf courses drew attention to the Valentino Dixon case. After twenty-seven years of wrongful imprisonment, Dixon was exonerated and went to Red Lobster.

Chicago Cubs, 2019
First Meal series
acrylic on Tyvek, 46 x 36 inches

On release in 2013, this exoneree's first meal was with their brother and attorney. The meal included a club chicken sandwich, fries, milk shake, and a Pepsi at FarmHouse Cafe. Exoneree was just seventeen when wrongly arrested for double murder in Chicago.

Thank God I'm Home said Marcel Brown, 2019
First Meal series
acrylic on Tyvek, 35.5 x 46 inches

On July 18, 2018, exoneration allowed Marcel Brown to enjoy a corned beef sandwich at mother’s home. "Thank God I’m home," Marcel Brown’s handwritten comment to Green, is reproduced front and center.

Blind Faith for Juan Rivera, 2019
First Meal series
acrylic, silk and glow-in-the dark thread, portion of Illinois state flag, watercolor, found butterfly sampler, marker, turmeric-dyed silk, and garam marsala sachet, on Tyvek; 44 x 41 inches

A cut-up Illinois state flag forms the butterfly, the state insect, in the center. Juan Rivera and attorney ate at Blind Faith, a vegan restaurant in Evanston. Rivera states about the meal, “I don’t really remember but it was full of spices and flavor and the food was beautiful. I wanted flavors, in there you don’t get any flavors.” The aromatic spice pouch on the upper left of the painting is to be refilled with fresh garam masala annually.

Liver, 2019
First Meal series
acrylic and glow-in-the-dark paint on sewn Tyvek, 42.5 x 36 inches

This individual describes a meal of liver and onions at mother’s home. Text in the painting's upper left reads, "what happens to a witness who makes false identification resulting in an innocent person going to prison".

Steak and a Dream Car, 2019
First Meal series
acrylic and glow-in-the-dark paint on Tyvek, 36 x 47 inches

Adam Braseel ate grilled steak and onions, baked potato, glass of milk. On release, an anonymous donor surprised Braseel with a dream car: a 2004 Mustang. Exoneree Jason Strong, whose own story is included earlier in the series, provided first meal images and story for this painting.

Beef House Near Danville, 2020
First Meal series
acrylic, platinum leaf, and glow-in-the-dark on Tyvek, 36 x 48.8 inches

Text at the bottom of the work reads, "Randy Steidl, 1st steak in 17 years, Beef House near Danville Correctional Center". Green collaborated with artist and husband Clay Lohmann to sew the red meat center.

Julie Green (1961-2021) often wrote that they wanted to be a stewardess until age four, but became a painter instead. Green worked in a variety of mediums but identified primarily as a painter, often combining humble materials and techniques with art historical traditions, as in Fashion Plate, a series of paintings on carefully prepared paper plates; or in My New Blue Friends, which Green airbrushed with egg tempera on panel. Green painted on linens, Tyvek, and Chinet-brand plates as well as paper and canvas, with pigments from sources as diverse as industrial waste byproducts, rare earth elements and 7UP.

From 2000 till shortly before their death, Green worked (usually in the winter months) on The Last Supper, a series of paintings on second-hand plates depicting the last meal requests of death row prisoners. A few weeks before their death, Green decided to end the project at 1,000 plates. The first 800 plates are currently on view at the Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Washington. Green’s related, more recent body of work, First Meal, will be exhibited in New York and New Jersey in 2022. A mid-career overview of Julie Green’s work recently exhibited in Flown Blue at the American Museum of Ceramic Art. The survey included a current iteration of The Last Supper alongside painting series First Meal, Fashion Plate, and My New Blue Friends.

Awarded a 2017 Hallie Ford Fellowship in the Visual Arts from The Ford Family Foundation, Green’s many accolades also included a 2017 Career Opportunity Grant and 2016 Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission, the 2015 ArtPrize 3-D Juried Award, and 2011 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. Green’s final public exhibition in their lifetime, at The Armory Show in New York in 2020, garnered the Presents Booth Prize. Green’s work was featured in The New York Times, a Whole Foods mini-documentary, Rolling Stone, PBS, Ceramics Monthly, Gastronomica, and 7th edition of A World of Art published by Prentice Hall, and in museums and galleries throughout the United States and internationally.

Green lived in the Willamette Valley with partner and artist Clay Lohmann, and was a professor at Oregon State University.

Obituary of Julie Green (The Washington Post)

UPFOR EXHIBITIONS:

First Meal (online)
Back Room: Traumas
Now We Are Five
Food, Fashion & Capital Punishment
My New Blue Friends

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