Julia Wachtel(b.1956, New York, NY) lives and work in New York and Connecticut. Wachtel’s oil, acrylic, and silkscreen-on-canvas paintings, which are drawn from popular culture, explore the impact of our image-saturated world. A figure of the Pictures Generation artists who emerged in early-1980’s New York, Wachtel’s early work mined posters of movie stars, pin-up girls, political figures, and pop music icons, as well as cartoon figures drawn from commercial greeting cards.

Her current work primarily explores the vast space of the internet, a place of constantly replenishing images on a disorienting scale. Wachtel appropriates, juxtaposes and ultimately distills these images into concentrated paintings, shifting the original logic and proposing an examination of the emotional, political and aesthetic conditions of an image dominant world.

Selected exhibitions include MoMa, New York; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. ; The Whitney Museum Of American Art ; Bergen Kunsthalle, Norway ; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis ; Le Consortium, France ; MAMCO, Geneva ; Migros Museum, Zurich ; Zabludowicz, London ; Cleveland Museum of Art ; ICA, London ; Kunthalle, Bern. Julia’s work can be found in institutions such as the MoMa, New York ; MOCA,Los Angeles ; The Whitney Museum of American Art ; FRAC Normandie ; Saatchi Collection, London ; Cleveland Museum of Art ; Brooklyn Museum ; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels ; and the Zabludowicz Collection, London.

Julia Wachtel Within and Between, 1984 Oil on canvas 274.3 x 81.3 cm 108 x 32 in © Julia Wachtel. Courtesy Lisson Gallery

Julia Wachtel Untitled (Life Blood), 1984 Oil on canvas 274.3 x 83.8 cm 108 x 33 in © Julia Wachtel. Courtesy Lisson Gallery

Julia Wachtel Mutant Ninja Chernobyl, 1991 Oil, lacquer ink and Flashe on canvas 152.4 x 335.3 cm 60 x 132 in © Julia Wachtel. Courtesy Lisson Gallery