Julia Rommel was born in 1980 in Salisbury, Maryland. She received her B.S. from the University of Richmond and her M.F.A. from American University in Washington D.C.
Rommel's paintings, drawings, and prints expose the procedures, tools, and materials by which they were made. The works are often intensely wrought through a process of layering and erasure that she likens to a fight: “I’ve found myself taking elaborate steps to keep my own signature away. I still remain perplexed at my constant refusal of my own gesture, why I find it so excessive -- yes it is personal, but the personal is what I am at such pains to bring out of these things, layer after layer.” Her finished compositions are structured as nesting planes, some defined by subtle variations in color, others by differences in facture and texture, but always by a discernible personality: an endpoint at which the details of the process relate a humility and humanity to the viewer.
Rommel's solo exhibitions include "The Little Match Stick," Bureau, NY; "Girl with Silver Rings," "Sorry We're Closed," Brussels; "Mother Superior," Gaudel de Stampa, Paris; and "Delaware," Bureau, NY. Her work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Museum of Modern Art. In addition to her painting, Rommel has written about art for The Brooklyn Rail and The Highlights magazine.
