In this public workshop, participants are invited to create unique photographic representations of themselves in alternate environments using images from The New York Public Library’s Picture Collection as source material. Artist Julia Rooney’s large-scale painting, Greenscreen, will serve as a backdrop which participants may digitally “key out” and replace with their own collaged imagery, digitally transporting themselves to imagined and hybrid environments. This project is a collaboration with The New York Public Library Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, The New York Public Library Picture Collection and Bryant Park Corporation. It is generously funded by an Artist Community Engagement Grant from The Rema Hort Mann Foundation.
Julia Rooney is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the space between analog and digital media, gesturing towards a world in which the two tenuously coexist. Her paintings, paperworks and installations have been exhibited widely throughout the US, including recent solo exhibitions at Freight+Volume (New York, NY), Jennifer Terzian Gallery (Litchfield, CT), Real Eyes Gallery (Adams, MA), and Kopeikin (Los Angeles, CA). In 2022, Rooney was an Artist-in-Residence at The Joan Mitchell Center (New Orleans, LA), and in 2021-22 was a Happy and Bob Doran CT Artist-in-Residence through Yale University Art Gallery and Artspace New Haven, CT.