Julia Schmitz (1993, Amsterdam) is a lens-based artist exploring human behaviour in relation to media; ways of seeing, believing and being looked at. Starting from an image or sentence that intrigues her, she uses montage methods to uncover the mechanisms of these ways of seeing and storytelling. Her works mostly revolve around themes of sexuality, womanhood and the nature of relationships, by which her long-deceased grandmother is her muse. Through a combination of personal, historical, and scientific narratives, she finds unexpected connections amidst seemingly unrelated circumstances. Her research includes interrogating the documentary genre and deconstructing cinematic languages, by which she extracts tools to shape her image-stories, films and installations.
She studied at the Royal Academy of Art (The Hague) and completed her master’s in Visual Anthropology at Goldsmiths University (London). During both studies, she experimented with film installations and her fascination for the construction of reality and representation in images.
She is part of Touchy Studios and co-founder of Touchy Productions, a production house operating from The Hague and Berlin. They are specialized in film, publications, text, web development, research and photography. Clients and collaborators include Sophie Straat, Goldband and Prins S. en De Geit.