Julie Tremblay

Born in Quebec City, Canada, in 1972, Julie Tremblay completed her BFA at Universite Laval, Canada, and went on to obtain her MFA at Pratt Institute, New York. Her practice encompasses sculpture, performance, and installation art. Tremblay’s work is contrived of nontraditional materials, including chicken wire, wax, and cast-off industrial sheet metal. Since the late nineties Tremblay has participated in a number of solo and group exhibitions in the UK, US, Canada, and Denmark. Her 2010 exhibitions include a Solo show “Interstices” at Galerie Lacerte Art Contemporain, Quebec City, Canada. She has also exhibited at Hendershot Gallery, New York, Galleri Rebecca Kormind, Denmark, Galleri Sortedam, Denmark, and Craig Scott Gallery, Toronto. Her work can also be found in private collections in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, and Turkey. She currently lives and works in New York.

Like many of my generational peers, I grew up not thinking about feminism. At one point in time, in my early twenties, I called myself an anti-feminist. I believe the main reason for doing so was probably the same reason why I am writing this today: I believe in balance and harmony.

Most likely my perception of what feminism was, or had to be, was misconstrued. I loved men and I didn’t want to be angry. As it so happens, as if the world at large was not male dominated enough, the art world became my world. Very soon, I felt I was as much of an artist as I was a woman, and quickly realized that the latter was a handicap in this world in which I very much wanted to be accepted.

No, not all the work had been done by feminists that preceded me. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t much progress at all! The statistics were staggering: women got one in five solo shows presented in New York. Where had all my female art school classmates gone? Had they given up when they saw how much harder they had to fight in order to get their work acknowledged?

Well, here I am, an artist in a woman’s body with a woman’s mind and chemistry, not giving up and still hoping that better days are around the corner. It took me too long to realize that feminism needs not be angry or hateful, and too many woman live with this misconception.

Being a feminist means standing up for oneself and fighting for woman’s place in the world. Unfortunately many young women still think it’s uncool to be a feminist. I think now is a good time to not only raise feminist issues again and highlight deep gender inequalities, but also broaden the definition of what it means to be a feminist so that new generations of women are not afraid to call themselves feminists, and finally get the voice that they deserve.