Julie Speed has been working as an artist in Texas since 1978, and residing in Marfa since 2006. Her colorful, detailed, and evocative work possesses affinity with the figurative Surrealism of René Magritte, yet suggests scenarios that are simultaneously more personal and more open-ended. This exhibition will feature nearly fifty works of art from the last five years, many never before exhibited, exploring Speed’s mining of Western and Eastern imagery, her combination of structured and spontaneous processes, and her creation of narratives and worlds that ignite the viewer’s imagination.

For the exhibition, Speed has designed a site-specific, three-channel video and sound installation–the Close-Up Room–in EPMA’s Robert Hilary Hoy III Memorial Conference Room. The Close-Up Room recreates the lively context of Speed’s Marfa studio, illuminating her creative process through projected images of her workspace, collages, and paintings paired with the music she listens to while creating. The exhibition is complete with an artist-designed, fully-illustrated catalogue.

Support for this exhibition is provided by AT&T, the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation, and Texas Commission on the Arts. Educational programming for this exhibition is supported in part by Texas Women for the Arts.