About

Nagle thinks of herself as an “unarcheologist” in many projects. Rather than unearth physical layers of history to reveal clues and truths, she creates and accumulates materials, memories, and speculations for viewers to unpack and mentally disassemble. Nagle designs artworks as sites of discovery for viewers to explore through interaction—they must play the role of investigator, archeologist, or experimenter when approaching her projects to engage fully. She examines nested systems—habitats within habitats, timelines within timelines, and bodies within broader ecological and cosmic networks. By scaling environments, amplifying imperceptible phenomena, or modeling celestial cycles, Nagle invites viewers to consider perspectives beyond the human, to engage with what is unseen: the microbial, subterranean, ancestral, and cosmic.

Julie Ann Nagle received her BFA at The Cooper Union School of Art, then completed her MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University. Nagle has exhibited artwork at Tinworks Art, Bozeman, MT; A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; BRIC ArtsMedia, Brooklyn, NY; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY Abrons Art Center, New York, NY; the Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY; Collar Works, Troy, NY; Field Projects, New York, NY; Franconia Sculpture Park, Franconia, MN; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; and the RISD Museum, Providence, RI; among others. Additionally, she has been awarded over a dozen grants, including a Jerome Foundation Fellowship and a National Academies Keck Futures Initiatives (NAKFI) grant subaward for her collaborative work with scientists. The many residencies she has participated in include the Museum of Fine Arts Houston Core Program, the International Studio and Curatorial Program, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Seven Below, Sculpture Space, Gallery Aferro, and Abrons Art Center. She currently lives and works in Chicago.