Biography Short
Julia van Koolwijk (b. 1968, Düsseldorf) is an artist and educator with an interdisciplinary background. She graduated from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1996 as a master student of Prof. Fritz Schwegler, complemented by study stays in San Francisco and Paris. Since 1997, her work has been shown in national and international exhibitions and is represented in collections including the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf and the Emprise Collection Düsseldorf.
In 2004, she founded Studio Maria von der Heide in Düsseldorf, directing its publishing house until 2014. Teaching has been an integral part of her practice since 2006, with lectureships at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, the University of Paderborn, as well as international projects for NGOs such as Embracing the World and Ayudh.
“Julia van Koolwijk
A large part of Julia van Koolwijk’s work can be seen as portrait art. However, in doing so, she creates images of authentic and emblematic nature that have never been seen before. Her works are formed, on the one hand, from a confidential relationship with the model and, on the other hand, from a playful impulse. This game always includes the desire for results. An experiment that is accepted as such by both sides. The resulting photos and videos serve Julia as working material.
In her exhibitions, it is usually shown in edited form and in new spatial and thematic contexts. Julia van Koolwijk’s works thrive, among other things, on the tension between intimacy and publicity. The basic feeling conveyed to the viewer is one of relaxed physicality. One can sense that the work was based on an instinctive certainty from the beginning, which continued in the later editing. The physical relaxedness of the models leaves them, even in the state of publication, in a matter-of-factness.” URSULA STRÖBELE
“Korporationen
The body as a being in community and society is the artistic home of STUDIO MARIA VON DER HEIDE / JULIA VAN KOOLWIJK. The artist understands the artistic figure as well as a form become shape not as a solitary object that presents itself to an audience free of references. Rather, she develops a relational system in which the artistically transformed bodies represent the publication of their personal network within a community or congregation…“ MARTIN BOCHYNEK
“Unter Freunden: Studio Maria von der Heide/ JULIA VAN KOOLWIJKS Besuchs-Fotografien
When MARIA VON DER HEIDE / JULIA VAN KOOLWIJK visits her friends, relatives, and artist colleagues with her camera, series of images are created that—often expanded into textile objects or as part of installations into three-dimensional forms—reside between staged photography by the artist and the self-staging of the portrayed individuals.
Many of these images arise spontaneously. The scenes mostly depict private moments and exude an atmosphere of great human closeness; moments that often remain hidden from the camera’s eye. Accordingly, STUDIO MARIA VON DER HEIDE’s view of people is always intimate, if not indiscreet, driven by the intensity of her relationship with these individuals. This voyeurism of the author corresponds to the exhibitionism of the subjects.
Although the artist encounters most of her models in the protective zone of privacy, she does not expose them. Crucially, both the perception of the photographer and the self-perception of the portrayed individuals flow into the sequences of images…“ DIRK STEIMANN
“UNTER TAGE
Taking a first look at the photographic work of STUDIO MARIA VON DER HEIDE/JULIA VAN KOOLWIJK, photographers like Larry Clark or Nan Goldin come to mind, and there are certainly superficial similarities. In the America of the eighties, aspects of provocation through nudity and a certain lifestyle and sexuality certainly had their effect.
Times have changed, and the intimacy of the skin has since mutated into a piece of clothing, to which clever body designers have long since opposed the transience of life with common trends. In other words, what is presented to us today as naked is by no means always truly naked. (Today, what you wear under your skin is what’s hip.)“ KLAUS EBBERS
Kontakt:
Julia van Koolwijk / Studio Maria von der Heide,
Lindenstr105.40233 Düsseldorf
info@studiomariavonderHeide.de
0049177 4051068