Aldrich Projects Julia Bland: Woven in the Reeds on view May 15 – September 14, 2025
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to announce Woven in the Reeds, Julia Bland’s first solo museum presentation. Part of Aldrich Projects, a quarterly series featuring one work or a focused body of work by a single artist, Bland’s installation debuts a monumental tapestry composed of canvas, ropes, linen nets, and fabrics—each dyed, woven, braided, tied, and sewn by hand. The exhibition will be on view from May 15 to September 14, 2025.
Bland grew up in Palo Alto, California, in the shadow of the counterculture movement of the 1960s and ’70s and during the early days of technological utopianism. Raised by parents from different religious backgrounds—her mother is Jewish, and her father is a Presbyterian minister—her upbringing was shaped by a confluence of spiritual influences. In 2008, she was awarded a fellowship to work in Morocco, where she lived on and off for several years. During this time, she studied Sufism and immersed herself in the country’s rich customs, materials, and craftsmanship.
Informed by these personal experiences, Bland’s textiles reflect a synthesis of visual cultures across time and place. Her work blends the kaleidoscopic imagery of psychedelia with sacred Islamic geometry and Judeo-Christian symbols. Through meticulous layering, diverse materials, and intricate fiber techniques, her compositions exude rhythmic intensity and devotional energy, evoking the mystical abstractions of transcendentalist painters like Hilma af Klint and Emma Kunz.
The interplay of openwork netting and solid patches of material creates forms that emerge and dissolve depending on the viewer’s perception. This approach references the Shifting Gestalt Effect, an optical phenomenon that emphasizes the whole of a pattern over its individual elements. Among the images that may appear is the “priestly hands” symbol, a powerful religious motif from ancient Judeo-Christian traditions representing divine protection. The exhibition’s title, Woven in the Reeds, alludes to the significance of reeds in both Judaism—where they are valued for their flexibility and used in writing the Torah—and Sufism, where, as Bland explains, “The song of the reed flute laments its separation from the reed bed and is a frequent metaphor for the longing for God.”
About the Artist
Julia Bland (b. 1986, Palo Alto, CA) received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from the Yale School of Art. She has been an artist in residence at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Lighthouse Works, The Sharpe-Walentas Space Program, and The Shandaken Project: Storm King.
Her numerous accolades include the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, the Milton and Sally Avery Fellowship from Yaddo, the Carol Schlosberg Memorial Prize, the NYFA/NYSCA Fellowship in Craft/Sculpture, the Florence Leif Award for Excellence in Painting, and the Natasha and Jacques Gelman Travel Fellowship.
Recent solo exhibitions include Rivers on the Inside at Derek Eller Gallery, New York; Embers at Maya Frodeman Gallery, Jackson Hole; as well as presentations at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago; The Lighthouse Works, Fisher’s Island; Helena Anrather, New York; and On Stellar Rays, New York. Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at The Tang Teaching Museum, Kasmin Gallery, The Everson Museum, The John Michael Kohler Art Center, Chambers Fine Art in Beijing, and Yossi Milo Gallery. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Aldrich Projects | Julia Bland: Woven in the Reeds is curated by Curatorial and Publications Manager Caitlin Monachino.
Image: Julia Bland, Helper (detail), 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Derek Eller Gallery, New York. Photo: Adam Reich.