The artwork of Julie van der Scheer functions on the questioning of this premise. She is an artist interested in illusion and the perceptual assumptions and failures of our vvisual sense. Her artwork is extremely subtle, often ephemeral modification to existing spaces. She wants to teach us to see again, and more to question what we think we see.Coming from a background in trompe l'oeil and folkloristing painting techniques, Julie utilizes these methods to slyly manipulate and alter ones perceptions of light and shadow within a space. She does this by careful orchestrating subtle shifts in tones of color on the walls and floor to eliminate or enhance the natural shadows and highlights.
The recent work of Julie van der Scheer is both present and absent simultaneously. It is subtle and fleeting, an alteration of particular space trough slight maneuvers of paint that can easily slip beneath our radar. One must be vigilante to detect her variations on a space, bt the effort is well worth it as a new appreciation for the faint particulars of that space and the way in which it is graced with light emerges.
Edward Carey, 2010
