JULIA STOOPS
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January 20 – 31, 2015
Opening reception: Tuesday January 20 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm

THE WORK
In this two-week solo exhibition, Upfor presents forty-six small-scale works by Julia Stoops. Combining inkjet and artist inks, acrylic and latex paints, collage, abstract imagery, expressive mark-making and translucent layering in a variety of drawing and painting techniques, Stoops' process is spontaneous yet thoughtful, where a sense of play and adept understanding of materials are equally important.

"Titles like Wayfarer, Locomotion and Traveling Quatrefoil with Aura underscore the sense of a journey, established by the reappearances, in several paintings, of certain objects that might be space probes. The recurring red orb with rolling-pin-like handles and the quatrefoil-type form comprised of two intersecting disks read as protagonists on an exploratory adventure. In Pleiades, the quatrefoil sails past the eponymous star cluster, seven gray spheres with white halos radiating liquid pink; elsewhere the intrepid four-lobed voyager eludes exploding raspberry-colored asteroids and olive-green tori tumbling through space." – Sue Taylor, Art in America

THE ARTIST
Julia Stoops lives in Portland, Oregon working as an artist and designer. Stoops was born in Samoa to New Zealand parents and lived in Japan, Australia and New Zealand before moving to the USA at age sixteen. Stoops earned a BFA in Painting and Installation from the Corcoran College of Art in Washington, DC. She then returned to New Zealand to earn a BA in philosophy and linguistics from the University of Auckland. Finally moving to Portland in 1994, Stoops attended Portland State University, graduating with an MFA in Painting. She is a recipient of Oregon Arts Commission fellowships in both art and literature, as well as multiple grants from other institutions, including the Pacific Northwest College of Art and the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

PRESS  
Review: Julia Stoops at Upfor - Art in America
The Museum of Modern Life inaugural exhibition - The Oregonian
The Space Between - Willamette Week 
Julia Stoops at Alysia Duckler Gallery - Artweek 
The Heliocentric Project - Willamette Week
Oregon Biennial: Can-Do Kanjo - Willamette Week