At first glance, the body of work of Buffalo-based artists Julia Bottoms and Julian Montague are strikingly dissimilar – one focusing on classic portraiture and the other on graphic design-influenced art and related projects.
However, what unites them is the use of historical aesthetics as a way of commenting on contemporary issues and art. Two exhibits featuring Bottoms and Montague – “A Light Under the Bushel: Paintings by Julia Bottoms” and “Julian Montague: Projects,” respectively – open at the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s East Gallery on Friday, July 14.
Such pairings can be a way to make unexpected connections and provide new perspectives, explains Tullis Johnson, Burchfield Penney’s manager of exhibitions.
“It’s the direction we really feel strongly about going: pairing, in our big feature gallery, two artists who are really quite different, but that can also be in conversation with each other,” he says.
“A Light Under the Bushel: Paintings by Julia Bottoms”
Buffalonians have likely caught a glimpse of Julia Bottoms’ work, even if they don’t know it – this portraiture artist has painted murals all over the city, including a portion of the Freedom Wall portraits at the corner of Michigan Avenue and East Ferry Street and the roses and gears depicted in “Out Of The Past, Grows Something New” at 490 Broadway.
Julia Bottoms, My Mother’s Crown, 2023, oil on canvas, 70 inches x 51 inches (framed); courtesy of the artist.
In the past, Bottoms’ portraits have focused on gender expectations of Black men and how they’re portrayed in the media, according to Tiffany Gaines, the curator of her upcoming exhibit.
“She emphasizes characteristics like vulnerability, sensitivity and these complex emotional expressions,” she explains.
The new body of work featured in “A Light Under the Bushel” – all created over 2022 and 2023 – is an expansion of that theme, spotlighting men, women and children with soft brush strokes and “looking more broadly at representations of the nuance of Blackness,” Gaines says.
Bottoms depicts people of color in Renaissance-style portraits that also incorporate elements of religious iconography – both types of art they have been historically excluded from, she says.
“So much of Julia’s portraiture practice is rooted in expanding the narratives of representations of Blackness and Black identity,” Gaines says. “Here, she’s really fusing the historic and contemporary to make us think about inclusion and exclusion, who’s been excluded from history and how we can begin to recoup the spirits of those folks in the present.”
“Julian Montague: Projects”
While Bottoms’ exhibit features just 21 works with the aim of visitors having ample space to consider each piece, “Julian Montague: Projects” wants to do just the opposite. A mid-career retrospective, it features more than 400 pieces, with a grid showcasing works from many projects over his 25 years as an artist acting as the centerpiece.
“What we hope people do is be overwhelmed by how much he has created,” says Johnson, the exhibit’s curator. “He’s a quarter of a century into his career, and that’s why we’re showing so much work. It’s such diverse material, but the idea is that by overwhelming you with that, you can see how it all kind of fits together.”
Montague’s art takes many forms – including painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, graphic design, fabric and video – and isn’t easily summed up. He first gained acclaim with his Stray Shopping Cart Identification System, which created a taxonomy to identify stray shopping carts based on the situations in which they were found. It was published as a book in 2006, with a revised edition to be released this year.
Another major area of his work is creating fake book covers, exhibition posters and more for a fictional 1960s/70s art institution called The Thorold Gallery. Johnson says Montague’s art and design explores, in an often humorous way, the way society categorizes and creates systems to talk about nature and art, and the sometimes overly academic tone that results.
“His work is very sophisticated and conceptual, but he’s also poking fun at the sophisticated and conceptual in such a wonderful way that it really makes the whole project seem lighthearted and like a happy examination of the thing,” Johnson says.
“A Light Under the Bushel: Paintings by Julia Bottoms” and “Julian Montague: Projects” will run through Oct. 29.
