Julia McLemore

Contemporary Digital Photograms

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I categorize this work as "photography," because that is my own training. There is a long tradition of photographic prints made without cameras, directly onto paper. This work actually crosses boundaries of photography into a kind of printmaking.

These images were created on a scanner that shines light through the flowers. The resolution of the scans allows for close-up detail in large prints. Images are printed on an archival Epson wide format printer. The prints look very much like traditional positive photograms (images made in a traditional darkroom, directly on paper without a camera). The inks are made of pigment rather than dye and are rated for longevity beyond traditional color photographic prints.  

Julia McLemore

Visual Delights
The Year in Review (Best Exhibitions of 2009)

"The uncommon works of Tamara Jaeger and Julia McLemore - which have little in common except being created with great skill and imagination - are on display. Jaeger builds whimsical assemblages with recycled wood; McLemore's floral photograms are delicate and luminous prints, made without a camera.

Jacqueline Hall, The Columbus Dispatch

"It takes a bright, new vision to make the flower seem fresh again, and Julia McLemore has just that. Her photographs, on view in the Springfield Museum of Art, offer new ways to look at the beauty and complexity of flowers.

While photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Joyce Tenneson focus on the external beauty of flowers, McLemore takes viewers into the membranous world of these delicate living things. Her works float in whiteness rather and being framed against black backdrops.

McLemore uses traditional photography and darkroom techniques to create works that seem computer-enhanced. She photographs the tissue of the flowers in a state of translucence. The variegation of leaves and petals, the microscopic filaments of the flowers' reproductive mechanisms and tiny drops of condensation become visible."

Kaizaad Kotwal, The Columbus Dispatch
July 12, 2009

Fresh Flowers 
"If you were to call Julia McLemore's Transcendent Beauty exhibition at Keny Galleries a show of extraordinary photography, you'd be half right, sort of. Her delicate, light-infused flora enlargements aren't photos, but photograms, created through a newfangled process. McLemore places her subjects in a high-resolution scanner, where the scanning light highlights the veiny detail in every leaf and petal. Archival-quality printing and pigment-hued inks add to the intensity and timelessness of the finished images."

Melissa Starker, Columbus Alive