JULIA FISH American, b. 1950

Inclusively and theoretically, Julia Fish’s work can be characterized as both site-generated and context-specific: in temporary projects / installations, and in the on-going sequence of paintings and works on paper developed in response to a close examination of the experience of living and working within her home and studio, a 1922 two-storey brick storefront in Chicago. Fish has described this process as one which “opens onto questions and critical approaches to the practice of painting, to drawing, and to the nuances and implications of representation / re-presentation.” Concurrent and influential research interests include the related disciplines of architecture, architectural history and theory.

Julia Fish (b. 1950, Toledo, OR) has been the subject of twenty-seven solo exhibitions since 1980, and has twice been the subject of ‘ten-year’ survey exhibitions: most recently, Julia Fish : bound by spectrum, DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, 2019-2020; and View, The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, 1996. Recent group exhibitions include, among others: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; MAK Center for Art and Architecture / Schindler House, Los Angeles; Tang Museum, Skidmore College; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Galerie Remise, Bludenz, Austria; 2010, the Whitney Biennial, and Homebodies, MCA Chicago, 2013.  

Fish’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Denver Art Museum; Yale University Art Gallery; The Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; University of Michigan Museum of Art; and Illinois State Museum, Springfield. Her work is also represented by Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago. Fish lives and works in Chicago. She is Professor Emerita, School of Art and Art History, and UIC Distinguished Professor.