Julia Cottin, (1981) lives and works in Paris. She graduated from the School of Art and Design (ESAD), Saint-Etienne (DNSEP in 2006) after spending her fourth year at the Art Institute, Chicago.
In parallel to her practice as a sculptor, the artist produces numerous graphic works (embossing, watercolors, tempera, pigments on paper, mixed media). Developed around simple gestures inscribed in the tradition of the artistic genre (carving, cutting, assembling, stacking...) Julia Cottin’s sculpture finds its source of study in architecture, through its symbols (the column) and its archetypes (the war memorial).
Since 2006, Julia Cottin has engaged in work related to the architectures of power, through installations, sculptures and drawings. By diverting codes, forms, volumes and spaces, she reappropriates these architectures to transform them into imaginary spaces, to make of them «territories in negative». Very influenced by the concept of «heterotopia» forged by Michel Foucault (conference «Des espaces autres» of 1967, Dits et écrits, 1984), the reflection of the artist seizes the alternative dimension of the places of the society, that it is institutionalized (concentrationary architecture) or registered in any space of life (islands of imaginary).
Corine Guercy