Threshold, North [ spectrum : blue ]

Painting

DePaul Art Museum

Name/Title

Entry/Object ID

2019.65

Description

Abstract-looking painting with hexagonal white shapes at top, blue abstract shapes on sides, and horizontal, multi-colored lines through middle to bottom foreground

Artwork Details

Medium

Oil on Canvas

Acquisition

Accession

2019.65

Source or Donor

Ann Kinney, Gilbert Kinney

Acquisition Method

Gift

Credit Line

Gift of Ann and Gilbert Kinney

Made/Created

Artist Information

Artist

Julia Fish

Role

Painter

Date made

2009 - 2010

Place

City

Chicago

State/Province

Illinois

Country

United States of America

Continent

North America

Ethnography

Cultural Region

Continent

North America

Inscription/Signature/Marks

Type

Inscription

Location

Verso, bottom right

Material/Technique

graphite

Lexicon

Getty AAT

Concept

abstraction, forms of expression (artistic concept), artistic concepts, architectural elements, components (objects parts), Minimal

Hierarchy Name

Associated Concepts (hierarchy name), Components (hierarchy name), Styles and Periods (hierarchy name)

Facet

Associated Concepts Facet, Objects Facet, Styles and Periods Facet

Dimensions

Height

23 in

Width

24 in

Depth

1-1/2 in

Dimension Notes

canvas, unframed

Exhibitions

Julia Fish: bound by spectrum

Exhibition

Whitney Biennial

Notes

Whitney Biennial, 2010

Interpretative Labels

Label Type

Object Label

Label

Six thresholds within her house have been the primary source for Julia Fish’s work since 2009 and are the frame of reference for nearly all of the works in the exhibition. The paintings and compositions in this gallery are 1 : 1 scale and based on the shapes created by doorjambs, doors, and flooring, such as wood, linoleum, and ceramic tile, as if looking from directly above. In these works, a familiar space begins to hover between abstraction and representation. In this sense, Fish emphasizes the threshold as an evocative metaphor. Irish author and exhibition catalogue contributor Colm Tóibín writes, “The house itself — its contours, the lines and shapes that make up its inscape — becomes Fish’s subject. She is fascinated by interior space. She wishes to isolate the shape of a step in the staircase or a light fixture or a set of tiles or a threshold. She seeks to make them strange, defamiliarize them.”