Julie Jankowski

About the Artist

Julie Jankowski is a visual artist and educator living in Baltimore. She holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree (MFA) from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree (BFA) in painting and printmaking from Ball State University, Muncie, IN. She also studied painting and drawing at Indiana University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jankowski was selected as a semi-finalist in the Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize competition, Baltimore, MD, and a semi-finalist for the Bethesda Urban Partnership Trawick Prize, Bethesda, MD. She has also served as the Professional Artist in Residence at Ox Bow, The Summer School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jankowski’s pieces have been selected for exhibition by curators and jurors from the Delware Museum of Art, Institute for Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Delaware Center for Contemporary Art; and P.S. 1, NY. Jankowski regularly exhibits her work in the Baltimore/Washington region and teaches post-secondary studio arts courses. She is also a graphic designer and typographer who designs and produces books and other educational materials in Baltimore and Northern Virginia.          

Artist's Statement

Jankowski borrows from ideas of constant surveillance and the prevalence of satellite images in contemporary culture. She incorporates maps of cities and highways, graffiti marks, and images of stadiums that straddle the realms of abstraction and representation to make her paintings. Her themes are threaded with environmental queries and sociopolitical quandaries as she considers mapping as a social construction of space. Her work is made using abstracted forms and rhythmic lines, marks, and symbols relating to real places, where she allows herself to borrow and remix the linear aspects of maps with earthly forms seen only by satellite. Her work addresses themes of location, conflict, succession, and connection in a technology-driven culture.