Julie Armbruster Talks Art

Strange humans and animal creatures populate the rich, illustrational small paintings of Julie Armbruster, a New York artist who has lived in Asheville, N.C., for the last three years. Produced with a mixture of pigment, charcoal, encaustic and ink, her work portrays pudgy people peeking from the mouths of sharks that have swallowed them, manatees mutilated by motorboats that sprout wings and fly about, and her creatures, drawn with the anatomical proportions of South Park characters, maintain a befuddled innocence no matter how horrific the events surrounding them.

Armbruster received a Masters in Painting from New York University in 2003 and has also studied in Italy and Germany. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in galleries throughout the East Coast and abroad, including the School of Architecture in Venice, Italy; 80 Washington Square Gallery in New York; and Rebus Works in Raleigh, North Carolina. Throughout March, Armbruster’s “The Reluctant Passenger,” is displayed at Knoxville’s Tomato Head. Knoxville Voice recently spoke with the artist about her second exhibit at the venue.

Your work has some fairly subversive themes — can you tell me where your ideas come from?

In general, my work comes from an intuitive background with a lot of automatic drawing, and I use the sketches I’ve worked on to bring out new characters. I took the characters I used for the Early Girl (an Asheville restaurant) show and developed them more, along with their personal narratives, for the Tomato Head.

You aren’t using the guy who gets his legs and arms chopped off by the motorboat! (in reference to her series, ”Shit’s Creek,” depicting a man befriending manatees.)

Ummmm, well… that was not recommended! I had originally tried to show that at a coffee shop here in Asheville, but I had to take it all down. It was just totally inappropriate for a place that served food.

What is the narrative for the show you are hanging at the Tomato Head?

The title of the show is “The Reluctant Passenger,” and it has to do with being forced to do something you are not interested in doing, but going about it anyway — going with the flow, but not betraying your emotions about it.

Your work is so ridiculously narrative — how come you haven’t turned into a comic book artist?

I would love to, and I have worked on a few books, and there are two of them I have finished. They are fairly short, but I haven’t really found a place that’s willing to put them out. Alternative hanging spaces like sections of the stories, so hanging a portion of them like that seems to be a lot more popular.

How important is humor in you work?

I think my humor just comes naturally with my subject matter. I feel if you do automatic drawing it is informed by your social observations, such as daily interactions with other people and animals, and how emotions play into that. I’m more of an internal person, so I’ll think something’s odd and I’ll take note of it mentally, and later on when I come back to the studio they just pop into my work.

Why is it important for you to have work in alternative art spaces like restaurants and coffee shops in addition to traditional gallery settings?

It makes the art more accessible. It is not as intimidating, and it isn’t a social obligation. People are going there anyway to do something they want to do, and then it [the art] happens to be there. Then the work gets noticed and goes out to a greater population than it would have with some artistic obligation to go to a gallery.

You are also a genuine Art-O-Mat artist! [Art-O-Mats are refurbished cigarette machines located in museums, galleries, and other locations across the world. Artists produce work that fits into a cigarette size box and is sold for five dollars.]

Yeah! I love Art-O-Mat! I’ve been involved for a little more than a year now. You get so little money out of it personally, and you have to invest in the materials, but it has to be a really great thing that you want to put out there, sort of like a business card in a way. They do the distribution, and you do each individual little piece. I found out they had put my work in the Art-O-Mat in the Whitney Museum!

Do you incorporate a division in the art world now between academia-informed work and street- and popular culture-informed work?

Well, in school, anything graphic or cartoonish that involved excessive outlining was not encouraged at all.

Are you guys taking over?

Oh, yeah, I think that would be great!

”The Reluctant Passenger,” work by Julie Armbruster, will be shown at the Knoxville Tomato Head in March, and at the Maryville Tomato Head in April.

The Maryville opening reception is April 6, 6 p.m to 9 p.m.