Julie Napoli

We see things through screens.

Everything we look at is unique to us. It is colored by our perceptions, our personalities, our experiences. Thus, when we look at an object, a scene, or even a person, we are likely not seeing it as it truly is. Instead, we are looking through a haze of our own creation. A specific image hits each of our eyes in the same way, but we notice different things about it. For one person, certain colors may be amplified, shapes distorted, or altered. Ultimately, this series is about the conversation created between our eyes and our minds and how that alters images hitting our cornea to be uniquely ours. The first part of this work will focus of seascapes.  The changeability of the sea has always fascinated me - calm and serene one moment, harsh and destructive the next.  It has always provided me with a cathartic release, which I believe is caused by the fact that it mimics the extremes of emotions we feel as human beings.  I begin with a photographic base, which is utilized to depict the idea that we all start with the same image and at the same point.  Encaustic and collage are then used for the layering technique. Layers build up on the surface of the photograph just as areas of our experience and personality build up perceptions that influence how we see things. The result is a visual display of my how I view the world, an examination of my screens.

 

Biography

Julie Napoli is an artist born to a family of scientists - a geologist mother and a chemist father.  Her childhood was filled with examining rocks and geological formations.  She credits this ingrained fascination with science as the catalyst that led her to photography, though she was clearly driven by the humanities even from a young age.  An avid reader, she often boldly declared – at the ripe age of 8 – that she was going to be an editor when she grew up.  At the age of 13, that theory was shot when she developed her first Silver Gelatin print and could not contain her excitement as she watched an image emerge under the glow of the red light. From that moment on, photography became an integral part of her life. 

With a tiny darkroom in the basement, she continually produced black and white images.  Unable to choose between her love of literature and her love of art, she graduated from Simmons College in Boston, MA in 2002 with a double major in English Writing and Studio Art.  While in college, she spent a summer in Ireland studying and writing poetry and was employed by the MIT geology department developing declassified spy negatives of the Tibetan plateau.

Though her love of literature remained strong, her inclination to create art became her focus.  In 2003, she graduated with the Top Commercial Portfolio from Hallmark Institute of Photography.  This led her to a position at a non-profit land conservation organization in Massachusetts where she combined her photography with her experience in design and English.  Though she found this work interesting, she again found herself wanting more time to create art and left this position in 2006.

Nature and nurture continue to collide in her work and identity.  She is aware that her artistic side stretches back in her genealogy to her grandmother, herself an artist employed painting details on large stained glass windows during the 1930’s.  However, she is also aware that it is probably no coincidence that so many of photographic experiences have been fueled by a direct connection to the geological and chemical forces occurring in the physical world.  She embraces this dichotomy and feels it offers her work a unique perspective that allows her to examine the scientific through her own artistic interpretations.

Napoli currently resides with her husband, inventor Joshua Napoli, in Arlington, MA.       

 

http://www.julienapoli.com/