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Julie Blankenship’s mixed-media works explore history and the fragile nature of identity. She hand-alters tiny, 19th-century, black and white photographs—painting, layering with ink, dust and glue, then makes digital photographic prints based on the collages. Originally, the photographs encouraged a feeling of connection, but she interrupts these (now unknown) narratives—deconstructing and reassembling them into works whose beauty arises out of processes that nearly destroy the materials, alluding to dark histories and gothic struggles. Like Werner Herzog, her work reveals a deeper, ecstatic truth, rather than “the truth of accountants”. Recently, Blankenship’s work was published in London Reader, and the cover of Egaeus Press’ Of One Free Will. Her work has been exhibited widely, including projects at Amsterdam Center for Photography, Amsterdam; American Institute of Architects, and Walter/McBean Gallery, San Francisco; group shows: CICA Museum, Seoul, Korea; and Center for Photography International, Haarlem, Netherlands. She lives in San Francisco.