Julie Wills's portfolio

Work samples

Hot Cage

2025. Baltic birch plywood, thermostat wire, fabric mesh, drywall scrap, foam, chalk, cardboard, artificial flower petal, vinyl lettering; 10”h x 12”w x 6”d

Available for Purchase
Bullseye

2024. drywall, dimensional lumber, rigid foam insulation, recycled denim, marking paint overspray on cardboard, plaster, locator flag, builder's chalk, vinyl lettering; 54.5”h x 48”w x 4.5”d

Available for Purchase
Castor and Pollux

2025. Baltic birch plywood, rigid foam insulation, drywall, string, hardwood, fabric mesh, artificial flowers, vinyl lettering; 10.5”h x 5.5”w x 3.5”d
Castor and Pollux is named after the twins of Greek mythology, who could not bear to be separated after death. The Latin text found in this work, ‘sine qua non’, loosely translates as “that which is essential.” Two flowers are suspended between separate structures, bound together by string under visible tension. With this work, I am thinking about what we hold on to, at what effort, at what cost, and to what ends.

Available for Purchase
The Book of the City of Ladies

2024. Baltic birch plywood, plaster, drywall, cloth, silk, builder's chalk, blue velvet, vinyl and dry transfer lettering; 26”h x 7”w x 7”d
The Book of the City of Ladies is titled after the early-15th century text of the same name by Christine de Pizan, in which she builds a city of women as a home for her protofeminist forebears. de Pizan’s “city” exists only in the form of a book; its structures are built of language. I think of this “city” as being high up on a hill, indecipherable text as its rampart.

Available for Purchase

About Julie

Julie Wills is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, drawing, and text. Her works have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the United States, including an upcoming solo exhibition at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD (2026). Recent solo exhibitions include the Greenly Gallery at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania; Gettysburg College; VisArts; C for Courtside; and MoCA Arlington as well as two-person exhibitions at Lyndon House Arts Centerand… more

View Julie's Resume

Cold Climate Building Science

‘Cold Climate Building Science’ refers in a literal sense to best practices for designing and constructing dwellings in regions with harsh winters. These include attention to wind patterns, snow loads, ground freeze depth, moisture control, and passive solar gain. I draw directly on construction logic through my materials, but the title operates metaphorically. I am interested in how individuals and communities develop strategies for endurance under difficult conditions— how we insulate, reinforce, and improvise in response to emotional, social, and environmental strain. This body of work considers these strategies not only on an individual level, but collectively, suggesting the possibility of shared systems of care, resilience, and repair.

Bullseye

2024. drywall, dimensional lumber, rigid foam insulation, recycled denim, marking paint overspray on cardboard, plaster, locator flag, builder's chalk, vinyl lettering; 54.5”h x 48”w x 4.5”d

Available for Purchase
Castor and Pollux

2025. Baltic birch plywood, rigid foam insulation, drywall, string, hardwood, fabric mesh, artificial flowers, vinyl lettering; 10.5”h x 5.5”w x 3.5”d
Castor and Pollux is named after the twins of Greek mythology, who could not bear to be separated after death. The Latin text found in this work, ‘sine qua non’, loosely translates as “that which is essential.” Two flowers are suspended between separate structures, bound together by string under visible tension. With this work, I am thinking about what we hold on to, at what effort, at what cost, and to what ends.

Available for Purchase
Hot Cage

2025. Baltic birch plywood, thermostat wire, fabric mesh, drywall scrap, foam, chalk, cardboard, artificial flower petal, vinyl lettering; 10”h x 12”w x 6”d

Available for Purchase
Danäe

2025. drywall, rigid foam insulation, cardboard, OSB sheathing, vinyl, copper wire, string, artificial flowers, spray paint, PVC primer, chalk, staples, locator flag; 60”h x 19”w x 5.5”d

Available for Purchase
Every Cowboy on the Sunset Strip

2024. drywall, marking paint overspray on cardboard, wire, screws, dry transfer lettering, abraded sandpaper; 8”h x 25”w x 2”d

Available for Purchase
The Book of the City of Ladies

2024. Baltic birch plywood, plaster, drywall, cloth, silk, builder's chalk, blue velvet, vinyl and dry transfer lettering; 26”h x 7”w x 7”d
The Book of the City of Ladies is titled after the early-15th century text of the same name by Christine de Pizan, in which she builds a city of women as a home for her protofeminist forebears. de Pizan’s “city” exists only in the form of a book; its structures are built of language. I think of this “city” as being high up on a hill, indecipherable text as its rampart.

Available for Purchase
It Takes Time To Mend Something So Broken

2024. dimensional lumber, birch plywood, drywall, roofing felt, flashing tape, silk. locator flag, ripstop nylon,
copper wire, staples, dry transfer lettering; 20.5”h x 8”w x 9.5”d

Available for Purchase
Landscape (Return)

2024. yardstick, abraded sandpaper, cyanotype on fabric, wire, cardboard, silk, manila envelope, graphite, cue chalk; 7”h x 36”w x 1”d

Available for Purchase

Not Everything That Falls From the Sky Is A Meteorite

2025
site-specific indoor and outdoor projects at KORDON artist residency, Estonia

Not Everything That Falls From the Sky Is A Meteorite was comprised of pairs of indoor and outdoor sculptures, all evoking the natural landscape and the built environment. All were created onsite and presented to the public at the end of my artist residency at KORDON, a program founded by architects with a focus on the intersection of art and architecture.

Not Everything That Falls From the Sky Is A Meteorite

interior installation view
Field (After Jim Hodges)

Field (after Jim Hodges) is comprised of a pair of horizontal and vertical elements, one indoors and the other outdoors in the landscape.
Found fabric-covered board, artificial flowers, thread, forget-me-nots
Field (After Jim Hodges)

Field (after Jim Hodges) is comprised of a pair of horizontal and vertical elements, one indoors and the other outdoors in the landscape.
Found fabric-covered board, artificial flowers, thread, forget-me-nots
Not Everything That Falls From the Sky Is Meteorite

2025.
foreground: Up-Down, roofing tiles, twine, artificial flowers
against far wall: Field (After Jim Hodges), interior half of an indoor-outdoor pair. found fabric-covered board, artificial flowers, brick, thread
video projection: Cold Green Sea, a simple, unending video loop projected on an interior wall that intercepts the view of the sea— in other words, if the wall was not there, the viewer would be looking at the same view
Field (After Jim Hodges)

Field (After Jim Hodges), interior half of an indoor-outdoor pair. found fabric-covered board, artificial flowers, brick, thread
Loit (Spell)

traditional clay roofing tiles, twine, artificial flowers
Orchard Moons

Intended to be viewed from both inside the gallery looking out and outside the gallery looking in
Orchard Moons

Intended to be viewed from both inside the gallery looking out and outside the gallery looking in
Not Everything That Falls From the Sky Is A Meteorite
Not Everything That Falls From the Sky Is A Meteorite

Subwalls

Subwalls is a series of constructions for the wall made by arranging cast-off materials from the building trades. I think of these abstract compositions as “paintings,” in the sense that they hang on the wall and condense space into a pictorial composition, though by using latex and pva primer on drywall as my “paint” I fuse painting as an artistic convention with housepainting as it is done in the trades. With these architectural references, I am thinking about what is visible and what is not, what we build and what we take apart.

Moon Ladder

2023. drywall, dimensional lumber, builder’s chalk, marking paint, latex, pva primer, graphite, rigid foam insulation, roofing felt; 52”h x 48”w x 4”d

Available for Purchase
Sky Window

2023. rigid foam insulation, drywall, intaglio print pulled from asphalt roofing felt, baltic birch plywood, cardboard, spray paint, silk locator flag; 11.5”h x 7”w x 8”d

Available for Purchase
Decades. Centuries.

2024. drywall, tongue & groove wainscot paneling, drywall primer, ripstop nylon, cardboard, graphite, dry transfer lettering; 6” h x 8” w x 3.5” d

Available for Purchase
Event Score

2023. birch plywood, drywall, cardboard, leather, locator flags, artificial flower, pva primer, dry transfer lettering; 21”h x 6”w x 3”d

Available for Purchase
All the Birds of Paradise

2023. birch plywood, rigid foam insulation, drywall, plaster, string, hardware, petal from an artificial flower lei, dry transfer lettering; 12”h x 7”w x 7”d

Available for Purchase
Small Holes in Still Water

2023. birch plywood, cardboard, drywall, wax, pva primer, drafting paper, locator flag, builder’s chalk, string, vinyl lettering; 25”h x 21”w x 2.5”d

Available for Purchase
What Does the Sky Know?

2023. birch plywood, cardboard, plaster, wire, Polaroid, hardware, dry transfer lettering; 13”h x 7”w x 6”d

Available for Purchase
High Above Lake Como, Early Spring, the Cliffs Still Bare Like Desert

2023. birch plywood, cardboard, drywall, pva primer, rigid foam insulation, locator flag, copper wire, drafting paper, vinyl lettering; 21”h x 12”w x 4”d

Available for Purchase
Blueprint

2023. birch panel, drywall, cardboard, rigid foam insulation, housewrap, graph paper, latex, pva primer, silk, dry transfer lettering; 4.5”h x 4.5”w x 4”d

Available for Purchase
Morning is Winter, Afternoon is Winter Again

2023. timber beam, drywall, housewrap, hardware, dry transfer lettering; 9.5”h x 7.5”w x 4”d

Available for Purchase

Clouds Filled to Bursting

Clouds Filled to Bursting, 2023- solo exhibition at Bloomsburg University’s Gallery at Greenly Center, Bloomsburg PA

vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media

this installation incorporates three named works:

Words that follow the flood
white vinyl text on white walls

Dark Sky Questions
suggested search queries related to space, armageddon and the end of time as offered by Google’s “People also ask:” feature; graphite on paper, each 8”x8”

The end of the world/ the beginning of something else
Biblical flood narrative, all personal nouns replaced with pronouns we/us/our; vinyl lettering

------

Clouds Filled to Bursting uses a flood as a metaphor for an overwhelming force, and the night sky as a place of hope for transcendence. Through its allusions to water, it also recognizes Bloomsburg, PA as a community that has endured flooding, and knows how to mop up after a flood.

Layered text invokes the multifaceted terror found in the current news cycle— climate crisis, geopolitical battles, human rights abuses and loss of individual dignities. Some of these text fragments give advice, some demand action, some generate or express fear, some contemplate possibility or hope, some offer shared grief. The amount of news is overwhelming, and trying to parse how it all fits together and what to prioritize is difficult.

Some of the materials, such as fire sprinkler pipe and copper tubing, are used to put water where it is needed— though in the case of fire sprinkler, the tradeoff for its use is a soggy, destructive mess. Others are absorbent and suggest mopping up or catching the flow of water from above. These materials reference the nearly-bursting clouds of the exhibit’s title— clouds so over-full that a deluge is threatened or imminent.

Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media
Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media
Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media
Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media
Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media
Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media
Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media
Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media
Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media
Clouds Filled to Bursting

2023- vinyl lettering, graphite drawings on paper, moving blankets, fire suppression sprinkler pipes, copper tubing, denim insulation, wire, buckets and mixed media

A Forest

A Forest, a streetfront installation at Plain Sight in Washington, DC, was created in response to the book Every Other Pine, Every Other Fir by Swedish author Axel Lindén-- a reflection on idealism, its shortcomings and its necessity. Texts intermingled throughout are adapted from Lindén’s writing. Texts on the glass are mine, and read:

You and I will sleep on the forest floor

You and I will protect our ears with cotton and riverbank

You and I will let things be marked for removal

installation at Plain Sight, Washington DC, November 6-22, 2021

Presented in partnership with the Embassy of Sweden and the European Union National Institutes of Culture, as part of the exhibition series A Window to Europe Through Literature and Art and the EU’s Europe Readr program, curated by Allison Nance and Teddy Rodger.

A Forest

'A Forest,' installation at Plain Sight, Washington, DC, 2021 - birch logs, steel, salt blocks, vinyl text and mixed media
A Forest

2021 - birch logs, steel, salt blocks, vinyl text and mixed media
A Forest

2021 - birch logs, steel, salt blocks, vinyl text and mixed media
A Forest

2021 - birch logs, steel, salt blocks, vinyl text and mixed media
A Forest

2021 - birch logs, steel, salt blocks, vinyl text and mixed media
A Forest

2021 birch logs, steel, salt blocks, vinyl text and mixed media installation at Plain Sight, Washington, DC
A Forest

street view of installation at Plain Sight, Washington, DC (with installation by MK Bailey shown on right)
A Forest

street view of installation at Plain Sight, Washington, DC

Lightning Field

Lightning Field imagines the sky as a conduit, and the elements found within relate to conductivity or protection from an electrical charge. By occupying both the window and the wall, this work invites the viewer to pass through the “field” suggested by its title.

installation view as presented in Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You at Lyndon House Arts Center, Athens, GA; dimensions variable

Lightning Field

2021 - sandpaper, metal rod, guy wire sheaths, string, vinyl lettering and mixed media; dimensions variable
Lightning Field

2021 - sandpaper, metal rod, guy wire sheaths, string, vinyl lettering and mixed media; dimensions variable
Lightning Field

2021 - sandpaper, metal rod, guy wire sheaths, string, vinyl lettering and mixed media; dimensions variable
Lightning Field

2021 - sandpaper, metal rod, guy wire sheaths, string, vinyl lettering and mixed media; dimensions variable
Lightning Field

2021 - sandpaper, metal rod, guy wire sheaths, string, vinyl lettering and mixed media; dimensions variable
Lightning Field

2021 - sandpaper, metal rod, guy wire sheaths, string, vinyl lettering and mixed media; dimensions variable
Lightning Field

2021 - sandpaper, metal rod, guy wire sheaths, string, vinyl lettering and mixed media; dimensions variable
Lightning Field

2021 - sandpaper, metal rod, guy wire sheaths, string, vinyl lettering and mixed media; dimensions variable
Lightning Field

Exact Wavelengths of Light - 2021, graphite drawing on paper, 8"h x 8"w
Lightning Field

2021 - sandpaper, metal rod, guy wire sheaths, string, vinyl lettering and mixed media; dimensions variable

100 Year Flood

A “hundred year flood” refers to the recurrence interval of an extreme yet statistically predictable event. In geographic or real estate terms, this demarcates the high water floodplain at times of most extreme rainfall; residents may not be prepared for such a flood, but it is not without precedent. Rather than a physical occurrence, however, this installation alludes to a swell of events reaching psychic or emotional limits— a surge of emotional intensity that threatens to overwhelm survival.

100 Year Flood gives visual form to emotional residue, much like the debris left behind when floodwaters abate. A line of vinyl text encircling the gallery perimeter operates as a metaphoric high water line, comprised of words and phrases related to limits, endurance, forbearance and submission. These language fragments can be read from left to right, beginning from any point. Extreme flood is used as a metaphor, with materials arranged as if deposited in place when emotional or psychological floodwaters receded.

While the origins of this exhibit precede the extraordinary events of spring 2020, it was actualized during and in response to extreme cultural unrest. Interrupted geometries and battered structural forms within the installation attest to systemic collapse, accompanied by the inferred possibility of creating something new and beautiful from the wreckage.

solo exhibition at VisArts, Rockville, MD, June 10- August 9, 2020

100 Year Flood

2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media
100 Year Flood

'100 Year Flood', 2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media
100 Year Flood

2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media
100 Year Flood

2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media
100 Year Flood

2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media
100 Year Flood

2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media
100 Year Flood

2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media
100 Year Flood

2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media
100 Year Flood

2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media
100 Year Flood

2020 - welded steel, concrete rubble, vinyl lettering, mixed media

The moon my heart

This work considers the interior force of individual, universal desires: love that is deep and lasting, comfort, and the need to feel seen and heard-- especially by one's beloved. These themes are familiar to even the most disparate of populations and circumstances.

A pair of entwined fuel cans attempt a closed system of mutual support, despite the volatility of their presumed contents. The distant reaches of an infinite cosmos strain to reach their other halves. The works in this exhibition are inherently relational: each conjures the proximity of two bodies. The exhibition's title, The moon my heart, similarly conjures binary entities that could be one and the same.

solo exhibition at MoCA Arlington (then known as Arlington Arts Center), Arlington, VA, October 14- December 16, 2017

The moon my heart

solo exhibition at MoCA Arlington, 2017
The moon my heart

solo exhibition at MoCA Arlington, 2017
The moon my heart

Lightning Rod, 2017 - tire, steel, copper, framed collagraph print, electric light; 36"h x 55"w x 30"d
The moon my heart

Lightning Rod (detail view), 2017 - tire, steel, copper, framed collagraph print, electric light; 36"h x 55"w x 30"d
The moon my heart

Red Flags and Surrender, 2017 - utility locator flags and vinyl lettering
The moon my heart

Red Flags and Surrender (detail view), 2017 - utility locator flags and vinyl lettering
The moon my heart

Saturn, 2017 - concrete, steel, copper, lightbulbs, hula hoop; 72"h x 36"w x 36"d
The moon my heart

The Sky, 2017- abraded sandpaper; 48"l x 72"w on 5"d pedestal
The moon my heart

The Weather, 2017 - lightbulbs, sandpaper, wood, vinyl lettering
The moon my heart

The Weather, 2017 - lightbulbs, sandpaper, wood, vinyl lettering

Drawings and text works

Words That Block Out the Light

2021 - graphite on paper. Two framed drawings, each 14” x 14”
Lines

2021 - graphite on continuous-feed dot matrix paper; 92”h x 9”w x 11”d
Lines

(detail view), 2021 - graphite on continuous-feed dot matrix paper; 92”h x 9”w x 11”d
Moon Ladder

2021 - vinyl lettering. Installation view, 'Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You' at Lyndon House Arts Center, Athens, GA. Open edition; dimensions variable. We typically read a list of words from top to bottom, but by calling a list a ladder, its orientation shifts.
Star Ashes No. 1

2019 - peat ash, Polaroid and mixed media on paper; 8.25 h x 11.75”w
Astronomy at Other Wavelengths

2019 - mixed media on chalkboard; 60”h x 72”w
43 words to describe the color of the sky

2018 - series of three cyanotypes on paper, each unique; 22”h x 30”w. A work about mutability and change.
Great Unknown

2018 - pair of digital prints on aluminum; each 6”h x 40”w
Great Unknown

2018 - pair of digital prints on aluminum; each 6”h x 40”w