Julia Gorman
Fancy free 2019
oil and oil stick on linen
Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

Julia Gorman
Fancy free 2019
oil and oil stick on linen
Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne


Julia Gorman


Julia Gorman
Australian, born 1968; lives and works in Melbourne

Fancy free 2019
oil and oil stick on linen
Courtesy of the artist and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

Artist statement:

I try to create a sense of buoyancy and lightness, a constant movement so that the artwork is actively filling a space but at the same time creating new spaces within it. This sense of opening up space is very important to me. Like Brice Marden says, ‘I present it as an open situation rather than a closed situation.’

Fancy free is one of a series where I painted on linen offcuts of different sizes and textures, so I had to engage with each work on a case by case basis. Each individual surface provoked a different emotional response in me, and I looked for existing forms that spoke to that emotion. The movement in the centre of this painting is inspired on the one hand by the figure of Mary in Bartolome Esteban Murillo’s Assumption of the Virgin (1670), rising up to Heaven accompanied by angels, but on the other hand by Warner Bros.’ Wile E Coyote momentarily suspended in space before he crashes to the bottom of the canyon. Both these moods are here.