About

Joolia is an American painter and sculptor working out of central Texas.

She received her BFA in Studio Art from Texas State University in Spring 2024. Her work has been shown at Texas State Galleries, the San Marcos Art Center, and Mothership Studios. She has curated a show for Texas State Galleries called Selected Gifts from the Collection of Dr. Timothy Woolsey using the school’s collection.

Education

Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. Graduated: Spring 2024

CV

Group Exhibitions

Connections, San Marcos Art Center, San Marcos, Texas, Fall 2022.

Student Juried Exhibition, Texas State University, Spring 2023. Guest Curator: Mark Pascal, Art Institute of Chicago

Painting Hallway Show, Texas State University, Summer 2022

FeverDreams, Thesis mixed media show, Mothership Studios, San Marcos, Texas, November 19-21, 2023

Moving Forward, Thesis mixed media show, Texas State University, Spring 2024

Curations

Selected Gifts from the Collection of Dr. Timothy Woolsey, Texas State University, June 12-September 15, 2023

Foyer Show, Texas State University, August-December 2023.

Artist Statement

I draw on the Pattern and Decoration movement, the Craft movement, and processes like the Gee’s Bend Quilts in my work. These movements embraced and brought recognition to female artists making handmade goods and textile work. The practice of felting was first used for utility, as wool is the only material that maintains heat when wet. Wool can save our feet from freezing rivers and is collected from the hair of animals. These qualities are integral to the felted sculpture, as they call on and repay nature through creation. I use traditional practices and appreciate the purpose, utility, and beauty that was initially the catalyst for wet-felting.

I create large sculptural paintings driven by material experimentation. These works operate as psychological landscapes that are the result of reassessing my memories now as a woman. I use the primitive practice of wet-felting to turn wool into fabric. Through many hours of labor and scrubbing the material, a fabric is made that I dye. I sew different colors of wet-felts together, and then stretch these materials over wood and fill it with stuffing to create volume. The sculptural intensity of each piece is predetermined to inform the space I am taking up as a woman when I am constantly asked to take up less.

My paintings are sculptural with the intention to overwhelm. Innate violence towards women is a problem that humans have faced since the dawn of time. The memories are right in front of us, but they’re murky and blurry. If you could reach your arm inside that black hole of recollection, you could feel them.