The photographer Julie Blackmon’s (born 1966) precisely choreographed domestic scenes apply an uncanny sense of balance, color composition, and proportion to households in various states of child-provoked disarray. The results hearken back to the work of 17th century Dutch painters like Vermeer and Jan Steen a “Jan Steen household,” after all, was once shorthand for a hectic home and draw on the artist’s own sprawling family: one of nine children, Blackmon has three of her own, and they often appear in her photographs.
Her work creates a world where children reign supreme in large modern gothic homes, and parents, when visible, appear as if caught in between the dream of adult and childhood. The scenes aren’t so much surreal as it is exaggerated, mythic with a minimal precision that compliments the chaos at hand.
Website: www.julieblackmon.com
