March 14 - May 16, 2021
“Jonathan Hopson is proud to present , Julie DeVries, The Waiting Place, her second solo exhibition of new works with the gallery.
For the last year it seems we all have been in “The Waiting Place”. Our lives all have been upended and sustained –a place where we have to face ourselves in ways we never had to before. DeVries’ title for this exhibition was one she first came across when her daughter, Louise, was a baby:
“What made this past year more bearable was that we went through so much when Louise was a baby–we knew how to be “cut off”. The Dr. Seuss book, Oh the Places You’ll Go we would read that to Louise when she was a baby and there is a part called “The Waiting Place” in the book where everyone is just waiting for things to happen, twiddling their thumbs and looking miserable. I had read the book so many times and it never hit me until then, at that point we were in the waiting place and this year I felt the whole damn world was there. The world was in the waiting place.”
Throughout her painting practice she has faced a tough question: When you’re in the waiting place what do you do? Do you suffer or try and enjoy the moment? DeVries found her painting practice became a lot stronger during the pandemic as she was relegated to her home, neighborhood, or nearby areas. She was forced to slow down and notice that nature was always changing and becoming. Nature continues on with or without the persistence of hope.
The Waiting Place consists of two series of paintings: Night and Day / Summer and Winter. Each representing the wide range of emotions this past year has brought.
“The night paintings–it felt that this winter was more harsh and the nights were longer. In the pandemic you noticed when it got dark so quickly. I feel like the work has always been about dealing with loneliness and uncertainty. Emotionally when you feel like you can’t take anymore is when I made the night paintings. The day paintings were those moments where you felt you could really get through it all and that’s the range of the emotions you go through in the waiting place. It can be very binary.”
The Waiting Place begins to give back what the pandemic took away. The curation of DeVries paintings are a touchpoint for the present moment to take hold and persist. From darkness to light, the works reveal to us how the dreaded waiting place can still give us wonder and power.
Julie DeVries (b. 1980, Houston) attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received her BFA in painting and Latin American Art History in 2003. For the 2002-2003 academic year she traveled to Argentina through the Institute for Study Abroad, Butler University (IFSA-Butler). On her return to Houston in 2004, she joined the MFA program at the University of Houston, graduating in 2007 in painting and drawing.
This is her second solo exhibiton at Jonathan Hopson.”
On View: March 14, 2021 | 1–3 pm
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904 Marshall St.
Houston, 77006 Texas
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