Julie Lipa
I'm a Detroit-born artist who recreates mistakes in history using Mid-century comic books, historical journalism, and vintage artifacts.
My relationship with recycling began in Detroit, Michigan, where my parents introduced me to garbage picking. Fascinated by the treasures found in discarded items, I became preoccupied with things people threw away.
My interest in art came later thanks to an art class at Macomb County Community College. I had a charismatically wacky electro-kinetic teacher who turned my brain inside out. He taught me the basics of color and composition, but most importantly, how to see things differently.
During this time, I began salvaging 1950s portable TVs, which I later transformed into functional art—creating wine racks, chests of drawers, and end tables. My earliest series called the “Disaster Series”, featured mounted TV faces to showcase images of accidents, inspired by Warhol.
Ultimately I needed to make the rent instead of making art, so I founded an entertainment marketing agency that integrated real-life brands into films, television shows and other content. Two decades later, I returned to my art, using the vintage TVs I had stored to create my solo show “Beneath Perfection: The Underside of America’s Mid-Century Belle Époque,” a journalistic exploration of American history.
While prepping for this show a debilitating health issue surfaced and confined me to a chair for prolonged periods of time. This is when I discovered public domain comic books online and where I came to the idea of taking panels, narratives and titles out of context to create new, risqué narratives. With an inventory of curated assets in the tens of thousands my latest series, “Pulp Fission: Classic Comics Reconstructed,” still contains the violent and sexist messaging of the 1950s and also tells queer or risqué stories that simply weren't permissible in Mid-century America.
For more information about the artist, please visit her website.