Julie B. Simon
chair
Klein Family School of Communications Design
Additional Roles:
professor, Klein Family School of Communications Design
Contact Information:
Phone: 410.837.6061
E-mail: jsimon@ubalt.edu
M.F.A., University of North Carolina, Greensboro
B.A., University of Denver
Julie Simon Photography Web site
While chasing after a tornado in a TV news helicopter one particularly active season, it suddenly occurred to me that this was probably not the most ideal way to spend the rest of my life. Shortly thereafter, I quit my job producing television news, packed my car and headed south. No longer fighting the constraints of the 20-second sound bite and the 6 p.m. deadline, I rediscovered the beauty of the moving image as art.
My work crosses traditional boundaries. Trained in traditional film and video production, I’ve gravitated away from representational reality and toward the abstract and nonlinear across many media.
Currently, I’m working on a series of abstract photographs digitally “painted” with color and movement. This work uses photography much as an abstract painter would use a paintbrush. Color, shape and movement are generated photographically and blended digitally. Where a painter might use a variety of brushes and paints to layer the canvas with texture and color, I intentionally move and jerk the camera, capturing frames filled with movement and light. That photographed light, in motion, becomes the raw material for the finished work. My artwork has been exhibited in galleries across the country. See my photography work on my Web site.
On the flip side, I continue to use those TV skills to produce media—video, Web, multimedia and photography—for corporate clients and have been honored to receive of a number of prestigious awards.