Artist Statement

I make inkjet prints on translucent gampi paper. The images develop over long periods of time through scanned drawings and photographs, digital layering, and iterative proofing. Before printing, I dampen the sheets so the ink diffuses into the fibers—blooming, bleeding, or breaking according to saturation, gravity, and the structure of the paper.

More recently, I have forgone framing and begun pinning the prints directly to the wall. The supporting surface, the quality of light, the humidity of the room, and the viewer’s imagination all become active conditions of the work. In many of the recent prints, light seems to gather within dark fields of ink, as if the image were slowly coming into or out of view. I think of them as intimate, unfixed objects that gather meaning through attention.

Bio

Julian Harake is an artist and architect based in Bozeman, Montana. He works primarily with wet-on-wet inkjet printing on gampi and other Japanese papers. His work has been exhibited in New York, Montana, and California. Residencies and grants include support from the Montana Arts Council and Creatives Rebuild New York, as well as residencies at the Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science, and Technology and the Oregon Coast School of Art.

Julian is an Assistant Teaching Professor at Montana State University’s School of Architecture and has previously taught at Barnard College, Syracuse University, NJIT, The New School, and the University of California, Berkeley. He received his M.Arch from Princeton University, where he was awarded the Underwood Thesis Prize.

CV