Julie Moon

What Is My Work About? 

Artist Statement

Images 1-16 / Collage and Confetti Confidential

I belong to a collage group called Confetti Confidential, the group has been meeting once a week

for the past two years. Consisting of 5 women who work as graphic designers (Lucy Cook, Ania

Diakoff, Laura Bernstein, Kate Johnston, and me), the collage group was established to fulfill a

lack of community and space for making. We chose collage specifically because it was an

activity we could all easily participate in; individually we have cultivated our own ways of

making while sharing the space and work time. The sessions often start off with a potluck dinner

transitioning into collage making and ends with a group critique of all work produced. Over the

last year we have hosted and participated in open collage sessions inviting the public to join us in

making collage. These meetings have been invaluable to me and my work.

I started making the collages as a part of the group but have since taken it on as my own practice.

I generate all the material that is used to create the collages. The generated material starts on the

computer where I design and create graphics (pixelated and bitmapped) in the form of patterns

and illustrations in black and white, these designs then get processed through the Riso copying

machine where the color is added – the printer, due to its age, adds softness and grains of texture

to the vector graphics. The printer only prints one color per layer (like silk-screening); this

allows for dense layers of color and experimentation during the printing process. Then I add

hand drawn shapes and forms to offset the computer graphics. I like playing between the

technologies and forcing a contrast between drawing and the hyper-pixelated patterns and

graphics from the computer. When I have finished working on the collage material I will then

tear it all up into shapes to create patterns and narratives using the figure. All the shapes are torn

by my hand – I don’t often utilize any tools or cutting devices. The tearing allows for

awkward forms to be made and handicaps my control in creating the final image.

The collages are separated into two themes – patterns and figurative narrative. I like to think of

the pattern-based work as an esoteric and insular typology, a formal experimentation of shapes

acting to represent a familiar yet foreign way of communicating/seeing. The same shapes often

repeat throughout all the collages I have made; a part of my process is saving all scraps that are

left behind from one collage and adding them to the next so that there is a constant dialog

between the work. Recently I have been experimenting with applying drawings and found

materials to create an added layer of space and dimension. The figurative works are a result of

trying to express a narrative through my methodology. I am inspired by medieval woodcuts that

depict occult themes such as the devil, witches, sin, and suffering. I often try to replicate the

same sense of emotional unease I see in the woodcuts. My collages are not as dense with

symbolism but aspire to communicate a range of states of being such as loss, pain, hope, ecstasy

and solitude.

Images 17-20 / Divided Daughters

Divided Daughters is a collaboration between my sister Swan Moon and me. The origin of the

projects is our KCHUNG radio show; it has evolved into making ceramics (my sister throws the

shape and I paint them) and into a two episode television show with Dawn Garcia for KCHUNG

TV at the Hammer Museum. For me, the ceramics are an extension of the collages. I paint/glaze

the ceramic shapes in the same way I create the drawing elements when making the collage

material. KCHUNG TV was an interesting opportunity to create something new. Everyone who

is a part of the radio station was invited to create and produce a show. For the two time slots we

were given, Swan and I decided to produce Divided Daughters Request Video Live and JPEG

CITY with Dawn Garcia directing.

Divided Daughters Request Video Live was inspired by Orange County’s public television

KDOC show Request Video with Gia DeSantis. My sister, Dawn, and I watched this show while

it aired during the mid-90s. We based our KCHUNG TV episode on the final episode of Request

Video on KDOC which we found on YouTube. The final episode of Request Video represented

to us the beginning of the end of original public television content.

Our show starts at this end, simulating and reliving public television’s demise but on web TV in

a new context. The episode concludes with everyone dismantling the set in an apocalyptic green

screen explosion of fire with sound image glitches similar to those one would experience while watching

TV on the internet. Our second TV show, JPEG CITY, is about culture’s obsession with images through social

networking platforms Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram. We wanted to create an Alice in

Wonderland-like scenario wherein Swan would disappear into a world of jpegs. In the beginning

she swallows a large amount of jump drives, hard drives, laptops and  iPhones to wake up in

JPEG CITY where she is confronted by all of her desires and nightmares through images. She

disappears into this world while in the background I am urging to come back into reality; during

this part of the show, I read excerpts from Towards a Philosophy of Photography by Vilem

Flusser. In the end she comes upon an oracle who tells her she needs to put down her phone and

enter back into the real world. JPEG CITY was our comic way of trying to deal with our present

time of images superseding reality, the flattening of history and loneliness.