Collaborations
In 2009, we lost our childhood home in a sudden, early-season brushfire in Santa Barbara, California. Though Kristen Gautier-Downes works in painting, and Julie works in photography, our creative interests center around making sense of this intense and emotional event that took away everything we owned.
Separately, we have each grappled with topics of impermanence, destruction, fire, home, and the lasting marks humans have made on the landscape in our respective artistic practices. These digital composites bring together our shared history of environmental disaster by combining our different approaches to processing a major loss.