Julie Gladstone

Julie Gladstone is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist. Gladstone's paintings reveal hidden facets of the landscape to consider the passage of time, the metaphysical realm, the microscopic and macroscopic view, things that are buried under the ground and things in outer space. By incorporating all of these elements and perspectives, Gladstone's interpretation of the everyday landscape is revealed through a multi faceted abstract language that explores the aesthetics of the urban landscape, the emotional impact of climate change and environmental destruction, the intersections between consumer culture, the digital realm, contemporary spirituality, how our society experiences nature, and a consideration of our place in the Universe.

A recent graduate from the Masters in Fine Arts, Interdisciplinary Studio program at OCAD University, where she received an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Presidents Scholarship and the Dean's Scholarship for her research. Gladstone holds a BFA with a major in painting and drawing and a minor in film studies from Concordia University, in Montreal, Canada where she lived for 5 years.

She has participated in artist residencies at SIM Residency in Iceland and Artscape Gibraltar point on Toronto Island and has lived in Haida Gwaii where she volunteered at the Haida Heritage Centre archiving the rare book collection and exhibiting in the Ocean Art Show. Gladstone has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions widely in Canada and the United States. Notable exhibitions have included Surface Tension at the Artport Gallery as part of Design TO, A solo exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Montreal, You are Not Wonderful Just Because you are a Mother Exhibition curated by Qiana Mestrich, the Department of Canadian Heritage in Toronto,and The Talahassee Museum. Her work has been supported by the Toronto and Ontario Arts Councils, the Government of Quebec, Artscape, and the City of Edmonton. Gladstone’s work has been featured by CBC Arts, Toronto Guardian, Toronto Life and the Canadian Jewish News.

Her first International solo exhibition was produced with the support of the Judío David Melul Museum, in Béjar Spain in the summer of 2019 and was followed by a solo exhibition s at the Museum of Jewish Montreal. Inspired by family mythology and diaspora, the exhibiton became part of a quest to discover the medieval village in Spain from which her ancestors were exiled during in 1492, during the Spanish Inquisition. By integrating Medieval Sephardic and Kabbalistic iconography and the flora and fauna from her ancestral environment as a way to create metaphysical protective garments, for herself, her unborn child and as retroactive protective garments for her ancestors in the diaspora. These works were exhibited in the village from which her ancestors were exiled 500 years earlier and are a contemplation of the meaning of a homeland in an era of displacement, climate change and the disconnection from ones culture and land that comes from a diaspora heritage.

Julie is also the founder of Living Maps Alchemical Yoga, and is a former professional Acupuncturist. Her studio is in a 100 year old building of a former Jewish hospital in the Annex in Toronto, Canada where she lives with her partner and daughter Skye Rose. Sometimes cardinals and hawks land on the branches of the trees outside the window while she is working.