Julie Puma is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores memory, grief, identity, and the passage of time. Born in Brooklyn and raised primarily in England, Puma was exposed to art at an early age. One of her earliest creative memories is receiving a set of oil paints from her mother at age five and painting a flower on a Styrofoam meat tray. Her mother died of breast cancer the following year, an early experience of loss that would later resonate with themes emerging throughout her artistic practice.
At fourteen, Puma returned to the United States with her family, eventually settling in the Chicago area. After graduating from Western Illinois University, she earned a Master of Arts in Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While practicing as an art therapist, Puma developed a deeper relationship with painting, experiencing firsthand the capacity of creative practice to process experience, construct meaning, and transform personal histories.
Originally rooted in painting, Puma's practice has expanded in recent years to include video installation and performance. This shift allows her to explore the body, moving image, gesture, repetition, and lived experience as artistic materials. Her work often examines the nonlinear nature of memory and the ways grief and personal history surface within ordinary behaviors, rituals, and relationships.
Across painting, video, installation, and performance, Puma is interested in the tension between internal experience and outward presentation—what we remember, what we reveal, and what we perform for others. Increasingly, she uses familiar social rituals and everyday experiences as sites for experimentation, inviting vulnerability, humor, discomfort, and unpredictability into the work. Through this evolving interdisciplinary practice, Puma considers how personal experience can become a shared space for reflection, connection, and transformation.
JULIE PUMA { MAAT / MFA }
1859 Clermont Street, Denver, Colorado 80220
303-882-7597 / / juliepuma.com
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{ EXHIBITIONS }
Solo Shows
2028 Experience Gallery, Denver, Colorado
2026 Meow Wolf, What Once Was (performance and video installation), Denver CO
2024. Leon Gallery, Denver, Colorado
2020. Emmanuel Gallery, Denver, Colorado
2018. Western Colorado Center for the Arts, Grand Junction, Colorado
2017 Firehouse Art Center, Longmont Colorado
2016 Rude Gallery, Denver Colorado
2013 Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder Colorado – The Immortal Jelly Fish
2012 Ice cube gallery, Denver Colorado – Let’s get it straight
2010 Rude Gallery, Denver Colorado – Early Onset
2010. Space Gallery, Denver Colorado - Home
2006. Space Gallery, Denver Colorado - The pink and Green Afterlife
2005 Singer Gallery, Denver Colorado - Letter’s to Stanley
2005 Studio Aiello, Denver Colorado - Dear Diary
2003 Pirate: A contemporary Art Oasis, Denver Colorado - Manor House Races
2002. Pirate: A contemporary Art Oasis, Denver Colorado - Post Card’s From Barbie
Group Exhibitions
2025. Arvada Center, Art of the State, Arvada, CO
2025 Emmanuel Gallery, Made in Colorado, Denver, CO
2025 Bell Projects, Girl Goo, Denver, CO,
2025 Meow Wolf, Denver CO, “Beach Day” a performance by Hyperlink Art Collective
2024 Dorado 806 Projects, “Mother” Los Angeles, CA
2024. ArtNauts Art Collective, “Thus Far”, Northern Ireland
2024 Axis Gallery, “Pop, Pop, Pop”, (Hyperlink Art Collective), Sacramento, CA
2024 Shirley Basin Land Art , site specific sculpture, (Hyperlink Art Collective), Shirley
Basin, WY
2023. Daily Specials, “Junk Drawer” installation (Hyperlink Art Collective) Phillip J Steele
Gallery, Denver, CO
2023. Remains, (ArtNauts art collective) Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2023 The Big Draw, Arvada Center, Denver, CO
2022 Figurative, The in Art Gallery, Online Exhibition, Jury selection 3rd place
2022 Disgust, East Window South, Boulder, CO
2009 Singer Gallery, Denver Colorado – Spittin image
2006 The Art’s student League , Denver Colorado - Image of Words
2005 Sliding Door Gallery, Denver, Colorado – Naked.
2005 Studio Aiello, Denver, Colorado, - Group Show
2004 Edge Gallery, Denver Colorado - Group show
2004 Edge Gallery, Denver Colorado - Member show
2004 Pirate: A Contemporary art Oasis , Denver, Colorado - Member show
2003 Denver Performing Arts Complex , Denver, Colorado - Windows to the Divine
2003 825 Santa Fe Gallery, Denver, Colorado - Group show
2003 Zwolf Gallery, Denver, Colorado - Group Show
2003 The Contemporary Art Center of Peoria, Peoria, Illinois - Breast Cancer show
2002 Zwolf Gallery, Denver, Colorado- Woman Painting Woman
1996 The Chicago School of Psychology, Chicago, Illinois
1993 The School of the art Institute, Chicago, Illinois, MFA Show
{Collaborative Projects}
2025 Di(merge)ent, Hyperlink Art Collective in conjunction with Tryst Art Fair/Torrance Art
Museum, Torrance CA
2026 Beach Day, Hyperlink Art Collective, Meow Wolf, Denver CO
2026 Beach Day, Hyperlink Art Collective, Experience Gallery/Denver Center for Performing Arts in conjunction with Performance art week, Denver CO
2024 Beach Day, Hyperlink Art Collective in conjunction with Tryst Art Fair/Torrance art Museum, Torrance CA
2023 Banana I love you, Hyperlink Art Collective in conjunction with Tryst Art Fair/Torrance Art Museum, Torrance CA
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
Ox-Bow School of Art and Artist Residency, Saugatuck MI, July 2026
Vermont Studio Center, Johnson VT, May/June 2026
Redline Contemporary Art Center- The Evans School Studio Residency, November 2022 - October 2024
The School of Visual Art, NY, The Artists Residency Program July 2020
Open Wabi Residency, Fredericktown, OH, Artist Residency July 2018
Arts Letters and Numbers, Averill NY, Artist Residency May 2017
Living Gallery Residency, Phillip J. Steele Gallery, Denver CO May 2015
{PRESS}
2025 Move Over, Millennial Gray: Girl Goo Exhibit Embraces Being Messy
2024 3 art exhibitions to see right now in Denver, The Denver Post
2024 Voyage Denver, Conversations with Julie Puma
2023 Showing Face, The Daily Camera
2023, Southwest Contemporary Art, Hyperlink and Land Report Collective Re-Activate a Uranium Mine Ghost Town in Remote Wyoming
2020. Westword Magazine - 100 Colorado Creatives - a-honored-as-a-colorado-creative-11786071
2020 The Sentry- Emmanuel Gallery exhibit explores memory through portraiture- - http://cu-sentry.com/tag/julie-puma/
2020. CU Denver News - Snapchat Paintings & Front-Line Realism: Julie Puma at Emmanuel Gallery
2016 Month of Modern - The Culture of Modern: Colorado Modern Artists - http://www.monthofmodern.com/the-culture-of-modern-colorado-modern-artists/
2016 Art Slant Magazine
2013 Daily Camera ‘Pick of the Day The immortal Jellyfish”
2013 Boulder Weekly “The immortal Jelly Fish”
2013 5280 “Best Bets "The Immortal Jellyfish”
2013 Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art announces BMoCA at Macky exhibition with Julie Puma More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/64708/Boulder-Museum-of-Contemporary-Art-announces-BMoCA-at-Macky-exhibition-with-Julie-Puma#.U6MBOqjc3dA[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org
2012 Live Urban Real Estate
2010 Westword Magazine - Edge is filled to the rafters with artist pairings - https://www.westword.com/arts/edge-is-filled-to-the-rafters-with-artist-pairings-5106768
2007 Denver Post, “Foothills exhibit proves realism isn’t so real” - Kyle MacMillan
2006 Denver Post , “Realism is Alive and Well” - Kyle MacMillan
2006 Rocky Mountain News, “Portraits of survival Painter Puma takes radical steps to deliver message - Mary Voelz Chandler
2005 Westword Magazine - “Alternating Currents” - Michael Paglia
2005 Rocky Mountain News - “incognito follows a career” - Mary Voelz Chandler
2005 Jewish Community Center - Centerline/Arts Line- “On the Wall”
2005 Denver Post - Friday Best Bets - 09/02/05 - Kyle MacMillan
2005 Denver Post - “1 More” - Kyle MacMillan
2005 Denver Post “Art work born of a tragic family history” - David Harsanyi
2003 Westword Magazine - Art Beat” - Michael Paglia
2003 Westword Magazine - “Now showing” Westword calendar reviews