Julia Fish: bound by spectrum surveys the last ten years of work by the Chicago-based artist and examines her ongoing project that brings together the disciplines of painting, drawing, and architecture. For three decades, Fish has given attention to her house and its vernacular architecture—a Chicago storefront designed by Theodore Steuben in 1922—to develop distinct systems of mapping color, form, and light through multiple series of paintings and works on paper. Referencing architectural details at scale from observation, she creates a subjective response to objective information, informed by the effect of light within space, time of day, the seasons, cardinal direction, and her own physical vantage point. This exhibition brings together, for the first time, the initial set of Threshold paintings and subsequent work that is filtered through Fish’s increasingly complex visual logic.

Julia Fish lives and works in Chicago. Her paintings and works on paper have been presented nationally and internationally, and were the subject of a ten-year survey exhibition, View, at The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago in 1996. Fish’s work has been featured in curated exhibitions at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; MAK Center for Art and Architecture /Schindler House, Los Angeles; Tang Museum, Skidmore College; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Galerie Remise, Bludenz, Austria; and 2010, the Whitney Biennial. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fish is the recipient of grants/ fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation; Cal Arts-Alpert/Ucross Foundation; the University of Illinois at Chicago. Julia Fish is professor emerita, School of Art and Art History, and UIC Distinguished Professor.

Julie Rodrigues Widholm is director and chief curator of DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) where she leads the strategic and artistic vision to promote equity and interdisciplinary education in the arts, while positioning Chicago as a global art city. Her work seeks to expand the canon by providing a platform for marginalized practices, voices and experiences with exhibitions such as Barbara Jones-Hogu: Resist, Relate, Unite and Huong Ngo: To Name it is to See It. Prior to taking the helm at DPAM in September 2015, she was curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. There she curated major solo exhibitions of work by Rashid Johnson, Amalia Pica, Cauleen Smith, Kathryn Andrews, Amanda Ross-Ho, and cocurated Doris Salcedo's touring retrospective, along with thematic exhibitions including Escultura Social: A New Generation of Art in Mexico City. Rodrigues Widholm has served as a juror and panelist for several national arts organizations, a visiting critic at national universities, a graduate advisor, given numerous public talks, and has written extensively on contemporary art.

Founded in 1898, DePaul University is distinguished by its Vincentian identity and urban character, which are deeply rooted in the fabric of Chicago. The university is dedicated to teaching, research, and public service. DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) reflects the university’s broad involvement in the artistic and cultural life of the city and extends DePaul’s commitments to excellence, diversity, and social concerns through innovative exhibitions, programs, and events. Through the interdisciplinary lens of modern and contemporary art, DPAM provides a platform to connect people and advance knowledge in a global society.