My current work comes from my interest in narrative, cinema and its relationship to photography and consists of a combination of photographs of actual natural landscapes (forest, sea, desert), architecture (interior/exterior of a house) and people as well as hand-made, fabricated environments (architecture and landscape). Within each series, some photographs are from my personal archive, others were shot specifically for a series. By exploring how the individual image can transcend its own limits, and by association, provide the opportunity for a pictorial narrative to unfold each story forms something of a larger narrative that continues to reveal itself in a variety of forms like an artist book, or photographic series. All of which rely on the fundamentals of narrative to examine and comment on the human experience. In addition to my individual ventures, over the years I have collaborated with various artists on projects that include creating artist's multiples, artist books and series of photographs and videos.
Julianna Foster is currently an assistant professor in the Photography program at the University of the Arts. She received a BFA in Design from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2001) and an MFA in Book Arts + Printmaking from the University of the Arts (2006).
Solo exhibitions in Philadelphia include Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Painted Bride Art Center, Fleisher Art Memorial, Gravy Studio and Gallery and Black Oak House.
Selected group exhibitions include University of Delaware, Newark, DE; Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, Lancaster, PA; Front Gallery, New Orleans, LA; Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, OR; Power Plant Gallery, Durham, C; Abington Art Center, Abington, PA; Grizzly Grizzly, Philadelphia; Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA; Seraphin Gallery, Philadelphia; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC.
Other projects include work in Conveyor Magazine, Proof Magazine photo essay, artist feature in Cleaver Magazine and photographs/essay in Good Game publication. She has also participated in international group exhibitions in England, Romania, Spain, Korea and Bulgaria, and has work featured in private collections across the country.
Foster was a 2014 artist in residence at the Philadelphia Photo Art Center and was selected as a 2016/2017 finalist at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia and the 2017/2018 Community Supported Artist Project organized by Grizzly Grizzly Gallery. Most recent publication (2019) in Constructed: The Contemporary History of the Constructed Image in Photography since 1990 published by Routledge.
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