Bisecting the American Dream

source: julielevesque

Installed in a gallery on the 33rd floor of a chic high rise overlooking Miami’s South Beach, Bisecting the American Dream is the collision of yesterday’s icon with today’s vision of “having made it”. The old dream has risen up from ground level to assert itself in the physical space of the new American dream….or is it sinking?

By conflating these two icons, I want to explore the generational differences between what it meant to our parents to succeed in America and to assess what our goals are now. The white picket fence as a symbol of the American dream has evolved to include its opposite –
a mediocre existence within the blandness of suburbia projecting an image of uninspired existence. Today’s dream has become an urban vision of power – a condo in a high rise, the higher the better, with a commanding view of the ocean or the city skyline. As structures,
both create boundaries in an effort to separate and differentiate ourselves from others. As icons, both frame our success in terms of monetary gain.

This piece is situated near the entrance, breaks through to an adjacent hall and assumes a presence in the floors below. It forces an awareness of its presence by partially blocking both direct routes to the view from the windows. By reconfiguring the space with an object that refers at once to a societal icon of success, territorial boundaries, parental authority and values, this fence brings out the passion with which we have all come to despise fences that deny us access. This became apparent immediately at the gallery opening. People jumped over the lower extremities even when unnecessary, some with glee and others with defiance.
In staking out our territory, we take control over space and dictate access deciding who is
in and who is out. Fences only matter when you are on the outside.

Julie Levesque
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source: julielevesque

Through sculpture and installation, Julie Levesque has been building a body of work that is primarily concerned with motion and the fluid transformation of energy into inanimate objects. The imprint of this emotion distorts their shapes creating a
narrative of the essence of the people who have had contact with them. Slumped, eroded or enlarged, emotion/energy is made visible in ways that never physically show in the body but reside there nonetheless. Working almost exclusively in white, she creates tension and contradiction by draining the color out of these energized objects.

Ms. Levesque has most recently won a grant from the Artist’s Resource Trust, and was awarded a Massachussets Cultural Council grant for sculpture/installation in 2005. She was also awarded the grand prize in the Provincetown Art Museum’s 2001 national juried competition.

She regularly exhibits at the Rice/Polak Gallery in Provincetown, The Clark Gallery in Lincoln, MA and AJ Japour in Miami, FL. She also was the curator and creator of Art for the Garden, a contemporary outdoor sculpture exhibit. Her works are included in numerous museum, institution and private collections.
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source: clarkgallery

Julie Levesque creates sculptures and installations that have a strong narrative focus. Her work is concerned with ideas about relationships, motion, and transformations. Working with images of fences, houses, furniture and household items, the stark white objects have a powerful effect. In 2005, Julie Levesque was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grant. She has shown her work at Rice/Polak Gallery, Provincetown, AJ Japour Gallery, Miami Beach, Fort Point Gallery, Boston and The Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts. She attended Massachusetts College of Art and earned her BFA in Metals at SUNY, New Paltz. Art New England, ArtsMedia, The Boston Globe, and “Greater Boston Artsâ€%uFFFD on WGBH have featured her work.
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source: ricepolakgallery

Julie Levesque continues to attract critical acclaim for her sculpture and installations. Rendered almost exclusively in white, these works have evoked a strong narrative of opposing forces and boundaries as they relate to relationships. In 2001 Levesque took 1st prize in the Provincetown Art Association and Museum’s Annual Invitational Exhibition. As a result, she was invited to create a complete installation in the museum’s galleries. She is a past winner of the pretigious Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artists Grant as well as a recipient of the Artist’s Trust Grant from the Berkshire/Tatonic Fund. Her work is included in the collections of the DeCordova Museum and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and has been exhibited widely at venues on the east coast. Her works are executed in ever-changing mediums which have included wood, metal, and slate as well as salt, marble dust, found objects and video and photography. – See more at: http://ricepolakgallery.com/artist/julie-levesque/#sthash.fOxPP6mK.dpuf