Julie Blackmon

Julie Blackmon (American, b. 1966) is a photographer who lives and works in Springfield, Missouri. Blackmon’s photographs are inspired by her experience of growing up in a large family, her current role as both mother and photographer, and the timelessness of family dynamics. As the oldest of nine children and mother to three, Blackmon uses her own family members and household to “move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives.” For the most part this is a world without adult supervision – a serene setting mixed with a little comedy and danger.

Blackmon aims to re-contextualize classical art-historical motifs by melding them with popular culture and the personal experience of her own frenzied upbringing. Influenced by the masters of the Dutch Renaissance, most specifically the work of Jan Steen, Blackmon infuses her work with a distinctively Dutch sense of light, palette and use of iconography. Also influenced by the Modernist painter Balthus, Blackmon crafts busy scenes in which time stands still – leaving the viewer to anticipate what might happen in the next moment. “I’m just looking around at my everyday life, like any artist, trying to make sense of it”.

Her work is included in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art, WA, DC/Cleveland Museum of Art/Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX/George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, NY/Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO/Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA and the Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, WA.  Artist monographs to date include Domestic Vacations (2008), Homegrown (2014), and Midwest Materials (2022), all published by Radius Books.