The Manicuring of “Suburban Lawns” with Julie Curtiss

Julie Curtiss does this thing with painting in which she speaks of the contemporary political climate without a hint of an obvious visual to grasp onto for context. She is sneaky in that way, and one of the best painters of the last decade to emerge in the wake of a resurgence of Chicago Imagist admiration but through her own satirical vision. Her cover story with us in Fall 2021, which I have mentioned numerous times, was where my admiration for her ability to be both political and social in one image really came to fruition. I like to think she has a vantage point over the procedings of life in a way few other painters have. “I’m interested in systems…