Biography:
Julie Abijanac is a mixed-media artist whose work explores self-discovery and personal growth through experimentation and risk-taking, pushing creative boundaries across painting, drawing, and fiber. Her work constructs a dynamic palimpsest through layering, stitching, cutting, and mark-making, where past and present artistic languages intertwine. Labor is central to their practice, with each cut, stitch, brushstroke, and drawn line serving as both a physical trace of time and a testament to the process. This approach stems from a previous body of work shaped by their personal struggle with illness, where making became both a means of endurance and a way to externalize the complexities of that experience. Through sustained engagement with material and method, their work explores memory and transformation, accumulating histories of care, persistence, and reinvention. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, with selected works in ConnectArt at Galeria-Taller Lolo in Matanzas, Cuba, and the II International Textile Art Symposium: FORTRESS MAN at the Mark Rothko Center in Latvia, where her work was acquired for the collection. Her achievements include Best in Show at the 10th International Paper Triennial (2020), the People’s Choice Award at FiberArt International (2013), and First Place in Fiber/Textiles at the 68th Annual Ohio Exhibition (2012). She is also a recipient of the Capelli d’Angeli Foundation 2013 Artist Grant for her work addressing cancer.
Abijanac earned her BFA from the Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD) and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She is currently a Professor and Chair of the MFA and Fine Arts program at CCAD.
Artist Statement
In my work, I merge various elements of painting and drawing with embroidery, crafting a rich visual palimpsest where past approaches and current abstractions coexist harmoniously. Techniques and motifs from my earlier artistic practices resurface in layered forms, with embroidery adding significant tactile depth and striking dimension to my abstract compositions.
The physical act of making—layering, stitching, hand cutting, and mark-making—is central to my practice. Each meticulous cut, stitch, brushstroke, and drawn line is a deliberate act of labor, a tangible record of time spent in the process. The repetitive, meditative nature of stitching and cutting slows the act of creation, emphasizing the weight of each gesture and the endurance required to build form and meaning. Through this sustained engagement with material and method, I explore how labor itself can become a marker of memory, persistence, and transformation.
The materials I use hold fragments of past gestures and decisions, which are recontextualized to resonate with the present moment. This approach stems from a previous body of work shaped by my personal struggle with illness, where making became both a means of endurance and a way to externalize the complexities of that experience. By weaving these memories into new abstractions, my past and present artistic languages converge and interplay, continually shaping and redefining one another. This process of accumulation and revision mirrors the fluid nature of memory, both fragile and enduring, where each layered mark reveals and obscures, constructing a history of labor and care embedded within the surface.
