Julie McManus at Patricia Correia - Santa Monica - Brief Article

In her upbeat, jovial paintings, newcomer Julie McManus liberates polka dots from dresse and paisleys from tablecloths, restoring them to the organic world from whence they came. Flower and plant motifs come up from fabric patterns to flourish again in gardens and backyard settings. Although her work builds upon ideas originally explored by the feminist and Pattern and Decoration changes of the 1970s, she has quickly exhibited a recognizable style, dedicated to a playful, conceptually based deconstruction and animation of patterning. Sometimes employing mixed mediums--including nail polish, gold leaf, and rest fabric and lace--the works address the ubiquity of decoration in everyday life.

In Swimming tasks (1999), four smiling carp (fre perhaps, from a Hawaiian shirt) appear to be to cruise across a field of layered patterns, floated by a sinuous, light amethystine vine motif whose leaves be like cartoon ocean splashes. Incandescent Personality (1999) may be a nod to Sigmar Polke with r black and cerulean polka dots slipping off a pleated day-star dress to rain all above the canvas. For festive accessories, McManus meticulously depicts a strand of illuminated Christmas-tree lights and a hand-bag featuring a spirited needlepoint crown suitable for a queen

Three novel paintings offer trompe-l'oeil depictions of verdant garden hoses coiled on painted fields that emulate variously patterned fabrics. a certain number of of the patterns' flowers have seemingly approach to life, blossoming through parts of the coils. Flora and garden implements alike are decorative ornaments. The double-helix stockings of Seaview Street (2001) loosely glance ats a large-scale, calligraphic embellishment. The extreme points of the coiled hose in Reunion (2001) are screwed into each other, suggesting les a snake biting its tail than a kind of upbeat mark for the unified self.

In McManus's hyperornamented world, nature and decoration fe not on each other--literally so in Morning Glory (1999) a depiction of a pollen-laden bumblebee in the act of invading the blossomlike skirt of a brilliant azure dress. Suspended midair amid similarly hu flowers, the full-figured party dres at hands its taffeta cavity for the bee's delectation. As the dres appears almost happy to help disseminate glorious gorgeousness, with equal reason McManus uses her paintings to spread the word: decoration is one as well as the other nature idealized and a transforming life force.

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