Julia Gutman

Julia Gutman (born 1993) is an Australian artist known for her textile based figurative works that combine embroidery, collage, and reclaimed materials. Her work often merges personal and collective histories and has been praised for its emotionally charged exploration of identity, memory, intimacy, and loss. Gutman won the 2023 Archibald Prize with a portrait composed of found textiles.

Early life and education Gutman was born in 1993. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at University of New South Wales (UNSW Art & Design).

She has said: “I think of textiles as carriers of memory. They come from people close to me, clothes worn, bedsheets slept in, pieces of fabric with a life before they reach the studio. Bringing these fabrics together, they become like a collective memory. I think that’s a nice metaphor for how unstable and porous the idea of the individual is. We are all made of the collective, after all.”

She treats her stitched textile works like painting, layering materials until the images carry both emotional and physical density.

Career and recognition In May 2023, Gutman won the Archibald Prize for her portrait Head in the sky, feet on the ground of musician Montaigne (Jessica Cerro). Gutman has exhibited widely across Australia and internationally.

Echo (2024) In 2024 Gutman created her first animation project, Echo, commissioned for the Sydney Opera House during Vivid LIVE.

The work reimagines the myth of Narcissus through textile-based imagery. Gutman described it as an exploration of: "the paradox of self-consciousness, the limitations of our own capacity to truly see ourselves, and the way our own unconscious wounds spill out into our perceptions of one another."

The animated projection transforms donated fabrics from her community into dreamlike landscapes. The protagonist features materials such as a mother’s scarf and an old hessian sack, traveling through rivers of denim and satin.

Her method challenges conventional boundaries between painting, textile, sculpture, and assemblage.