Julia Edith Rigby

Statement

Julia Edith Rigby is an artist who thinks about climate change, environmental relationships and acoustic ecology. Her work explores perception, sound and ways of co-creating with non-humans and natural processes. She received her MFA in Studio Art at the University of California, Davis (2020). She is a recipient of the Mary Lou Osborn Award, the Fay Nelson Award and Phi Kappa Phi honors at UC Davis. She has been an artist in residence at PLAYA Summer Lake, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Kala Art Institute, Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts and Agriculture, Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts and the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di Venezia in Venice, Italy. Rigby has exhibited work in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and the Netherlands. She lives and works in California.

GlogauAIR Project

While in Berlin I plan to continue making work that offers viewers a multi-sensory experience to explore perceptual environments and ecosystem relationships. The work will position the viewer / listener as performer, inviting us to explore perception and relationships between humans and non-human systems, to engage sonically and challenge the ways we experience the world. Why do we perceive our world the ways we do? How could we practice new forms of perception, and how could this play into worldmaking? How can sculpture render the inaudible audible? How can we make audible a site’s sonic signature? What are ways that sculpture can introduce new sonic elements to that signature? And what can sculpture say about a site’s relationships between movement, space and sound?

I am curious about questions like: what are different ways to perceive and understand movement and sound and space? Which elements of a particular site are we perceiving or not perceiving? What are ways of co-creating with non-humans and natural processes? What are ways that site-specific installations can yield site-specific scores, and what those scores might say about the acoustic ecology of a place? Can sound enable us to better understand ecology? What can be learned of a site’s biosymphony–an ephemeral sound signature of organisms interacting with one another—as it relates to ecological relationships and sculptural relationships? What are different ways to listen, and what can listening do for us and our relationships with our world?

CV Summary

EDUCATION

• 2020 University of California, Davis, M.F.A. in Art Studio, Department of Art and Art History, phi kappa phi
• 2019 Welding Certification, FCAW, MIG, American Welding Society
• 2012 Scripps College, B.A. in Environmental Writing, Honors, magna cum laude, Claremont, CA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• 2022 Genetically United, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA
• 2021 Anderson Ranch Artists in Residence Exhibition, Patton-Malott Gallery, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass, CO
• Anthropocene Epiphany, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA
• Land and Water, Coaxial Arts Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, two person show with Caz Azevedo
• Performing Arts Symposium, choreography and dance performance in collaboration with Ekaterina Zharinova, Performance Studies PhD Symposium, UC Davis Performance PhD studies, Della Theatre, Davis, California
• 2020 Altered Trajectories, MFA Thesis Show, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis CA
• Assemblage, The MFA Show, Luhring Augustine, New York and The Olympia Project, New York
• The Printed Realm, Pence Gallery, Davis CA
• Ellen Hansen Memorial Show, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis CA
• 2019 Afterflow, with Christopher Azevedo, MFA Studio Gallery, Davis, CA (two-person show with Caz Azevedo)
• blip, first year MFA exhibition, JayJay Gallery, Sacramento, CA
• Outside the Lines, (live performance), Wright Theatre, Davis CA
• First Drafts, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis CA
• MFA Now 2019, Root Division Gallery, San Francisco CA
• Underground, Basement Gallery, Davis CA
• 2018 ClimART, San Francisco Academy of Art, Cannery Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 105th Annual Exhibition, California Society of Printmakers, Piedmont Center for the Arts, Piedmont, CA
• Visual AIDS, Gallery 524, New York, NY
• Artists’ Annual, Kala Art Institute Gallery, Berkeley, CA
• Art Speaks! Lend Your Voice, Arena 1 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
• 2017 Home-land, Galerie Sehnsucht, The Netherlands
• Flora and Faura, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• Tidal Response, Petaluma Arts Center, Petaluma, CA, curated by Carin Jacobs
• Nasty Woman, Omi Gallery-Impact Hub, Oakland, CA
• Southern Graphics Council International Exhibition, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
• Snap, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA, curated by Priscilla Otani, Stephen C. Wagner and Michael Yochum
• 2016 Inverness Almanac Retrospective, Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA
• Chrysalis Studio Group Show, SOMArts, San Francisco, CA, curated by Katie Gilmartin

RESIDENCIES

• 2022 PLAYA Artist Residency, Summer Lake, OR
• Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts and Agriculture Artist Residency, Sisters, OR
• 2021 Anderson Ranch Arts Center Artist Residency, Snowmass Village, CO
• Bodega Marine Reserve Research Station, University of California Natural Reserve System, Bodega, CA
• 2020 Point Reyes Field Research Station, University of California Natural Reserve System, Point Reyes, CA
• 2018 Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di Venezia, Venice, Italy
• 2017 Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA
• Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, Saratoga, WY

AWARDS AND GRANTS

• 2020 Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, University of California, Davis Chapter
• Fay Nelson Award, awarded by the University of California, Davis Department of Art and Art History
• Graduate Student Researcher, awarded by the Department of Art and Art History, University of California, Davis
• Finalist, Headlands Center for the Arts Graduate Fellowship, Headlands Center for the Arts, CA
• 2019 Associate Instructor Fellowship, awarded by the University of California, Davis Department of Art and Art History
• Graduate Student Researcher, awarded by the Department of Art and Art History, University of California, Davis
• Freemon Gadberry Award, awarded by the University of California, Davis Department of Art and Art History
• Mary Lou Osborn Award, awarded by the University of California, Davis Department of Art and Art History
• Graduate Teaching Assistant Fellowship, awarded by the University of California, Davis Department of Art and Art History
• 2018 Graduate Teaching Assistant Fellowship, awarded by the University of California, Davis Department of Art and Art History

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

• 2022 Sound art workshop with local middle school students at Sisters Middle School, Oregon
• 2020-2018 Graduate Mentor for the Mentor-Mentee Program in Humanities, Arts, Cultural Studies and Social Sciences, University of California, Davis
• Graduate Teaching Assistant, Lab Monitor, Associate Instructor, Department of Art and Art History, University of California, Davis

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• 2022 Art and Cake LA Magazine
• 2021 Indices of Being (exhibition catalog, Axis Gallery, Sacramento)
• 2020 Altered Trajectories (MFA Thesis Show exhibition catalog), Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis CA

Gallery