Julia Hitchcock

Julia Hitchcock joined the Baylor Art Department faculty in 1999. She is a recipient of the Elizabeth T. Greenshields Award. She has exhibited in eleven solo exhibitions and 47 national and international exhibitions and has received nine national show awards.

For a current document listing exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and professional recognitions, see www.juliahitchcock.com

MFA, Arizona State University
BFA, Arizona State University

Artist Statement

Resisting visual gloss, I continue to make art with materials like paint, charcoal and chalk pastels, the usual stuff of "old art." Not to say that on occasion, I feel that the confinement of the two-dimensional format sends me searching for actual found objects to reconfigure. The sculptures and installations provide a set of visual metaphors that alter the context of a group of items and the often-discordant materials I have selected. Objects are modified, re-codified and forced into unusual juxtapositions, stripping them of their basic meaning and collectively creating schematized concepts and artificial arrangements that may be viewed, judged and manipulated for my own artistic and expressive purposes.

The emphasis on genetic (scientifically engineered) and/or human malfunction (random genetic mutation) resulting in physical and mental anomalies remains at the core of my images. This unfashionable and often grotesque aspect of human deformities provides a platform to access and probe the resultant physiological and psychological effects within the arena of social interaction and communication. In this observation of the common acts of negotiating life's most basic needs, I hope to draw attention to distinctions between social structures and scientific research and their cultural consequences--how they are engaged and mutually transformed.

Professional Work