Meet Julia Kunin | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Julia Kunin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Julia, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
On reason that I became an artist is because I knew that I wanted to have a voice outside of the mainstream, in order to speak to a marginalized audience, namely the LGBTQ community. In addition, working in sculpture has enabled me to meet phenomenal craftspeople along the way, many who make our dishes, mugs and bowls, yet. who remain anonymous. It has also enabled me to enjoy playing with materials and learning in an environment where there is no clear right and wrong. The artist makes up the rules, and therefore makes new “rules”.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m almost 62 years old and have persisted in creating art, and I thank the support of my friends. I learned early on that I was not going to achieve fast huge success like many young sis males in their 20’s. Mine was a long game, with no specific goal in sight but to gain more time and resources to continue making work while sharing ideas with a community I care about. I also believe in giving back, by doing studio visits, recommending people to others. I’m happy to be on the board of FIAR, the Fire Island Artist Residency, a residency for LGBTQ artists.

I am building ceramic figures that are stacks of symbols and caryatids that incorporate idealized space-age monuments and structures. The ceramic wall reliefs are part of an imaginary frieze of sexually charged figures. They are at once fortresses in themselves, a merging of body, machine and architecture. “Rainbow Dream Machine” my solo show at McClain gallery in Houston, in 2021, marks the first opportunity I’ve had to install these caryatid works as they were meant to be seen. The wall reliefs are influenced by Les Guérillères, a novel written by Monique Wittig that reads like a utopian epic poem. Like the caryatids, it features a pantheon of mythologized female warriors. My on-going series of figures pays homage to Wittig’s revolutionary writing on gender, language and lesbian visibility.
These abstracted figures that I am continuing to develop verge on the robotic and otherworldly, stand-ins for future Guérillères, or warriors. The iridescent glaze that I use creates a sense of infinite mirroring within the figures. The surface is dynamic, ever changing and disorienting. The destabilizing psychedelic color enables the figures to perform in their ever-shifting narrative frieze.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
There are so many wonderful things to see in Pécs, Hungary. I would take them first to the Vasarely Museum, followed by the Sar Elizabeth museum, then we would wander to Szecheny Ter and sit at the Mecsek Csukarazda (pastry shop) and order a few pieces of cake to share and try, along with a kis presso kavét (a short expresso coffee). We would join friends there . Then after being energized we would go to the small Jami (mosque) near the Korhaz ter, a magical place. The next day we could spend entirely at the Zsolnay quarter, seeing the Gyugyi collection of phenomenal ceramics made at the turn of the century, and then head to the Bobita Bab Szinhas, the Bobita puppet theater cafe, for a lemonade, while sitting on the balcony overlooking the quarter, keeping the sphinx sculptures within our field of vision. We might stop at the M21 gallery and see what is there, and then walk to Kiraly street, the center walking street, and meet friends at the Napoli (meaning “Living Room”) cafe, and have friends join us as we sit outside watching people go by.
The next day we might take a walk in the Mecsek, or go to the Tetye, (a park) and take a long walk up to the church there and have a piece of home made strudel at the small rustic cafe nearby. We might have dinner at the small basement space, Istvan Pince, which remains true to the way it was during socialist times. You could order one deciliter of wine, that would be ladeled out of a metal container set into the wooden countertop near the cashier. That along with a good pörkölt (stew) and cucumber salad with sour cream, would be very satisfying.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are so many people who have supported me along the way. I hold my community of artist friends very dear. I want to thank the late Hideo Okino, who led the pottery shop at the University of Vermont in the 1970’s. I hung out there as a teenager, and he welcomed me into the shop to do my own work every day all day during the summers. I learned by watching, and from the wonderful potters in the shop who took me under their wing. Hideo opened the pottery shop to fellow potters, enabling them to start their own studio potteries in the 1970’s.

Website: http://www.juliakunin.com

Instagram: Juliakunin

Image Credits
Jeffrey Scott French, image credit for all 4 sculpture shots, not for install shot.