Julia Hames is a painter, educator, and gardener currently living in Hudson, NY. She holds a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design with a concentration in nature, culture, and sustainability studies. Her practice revolves around a sensitivity to the natural world, experimenting with pigments, dyes, glass, biomaterials, and fibers. They have created their own poetic language with their paintings that captures the spiritual properties of the organic world, often using the bilateral symmetry found in living organisms as a source of inspiration. Otherworldly images are born from the close observation and scientific research of arthropods such as crabs, moths, and beetles. Their connection with nature also extends beyond the visual, as a key part of their practice is growing and foraging their own plants and fibers to use for material exploration. With the use of handmade paints and bio-substrates, her work rejects the notion of the archive and exists as a living organism as it changes from day to day. Hames acts not solely as an artist, but as a collaborator with the world they live in.
