julia vance

Julia Vance’s work is represented in private collections throughout Europe and the US and in various public collections in Norway. She has twice had sculptures exhibited in front of the Norwegian Parliament and also in front of Oslo Central Station. In 2005 she received the Norwegian State’s 3-Year Artist Grant and was in 2010 invited to join Norway Central Bank’s Coin Design Advisory Committee. Having exhibited in Norway, England, Sweden, Russia, Belgium, Italy, Holland and the United Arab Emirates, the artist now shares her time between Norway and Studio Sem in Pietrasanta, Italy.
Letters and words are at the heart of Julia Vance’s oeuvre. Beginning her career as a calligrapher, essentially shaping and refining the letters of the alphabet, symbols that belong to us all, she began to sharpen ideas and texts into single words, a practice she refers to as “sculpturally minimalistic poetry.”
Her sculptures, therefore, are materialized words or thoughts in 3D, encouraging reflection on form and content, and on the relation between these. Julia ‘s workis also converned with identity and belonging, using words like we/me, two and hold.
Carved in marble, granite or alabaster, her sculptures seem to bend the stone, sometimes also hollowing out, with precisely defined curves, planes and edges. Through classical form and conceptual expression, she also goes beyond legibility.