Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Julia Shirar

Julia Shirar isn’t just a painter. As a sound editor, she’s worked on such films as Lost in Translation and Adaptation. Her current occupation? Caretaker at a funeral home in Queens. This month, the eclectic artist returns to Johnson’s Vermont Studio Center, where she was a resident in 2008, with her series “People in Places.” In one searing portrait, a poet looks tired and overworked as she stares intently forward, her spidery fingers gracing her chin. In another, an overweight man reclines on a sofa in nothing but a robe and boxing gloves. “Implied is the manifold nature of history and memory,” writes Shirar in her artist statement, “and the questionable stability of our structured world, so vexing that it requires a sense of humor.” Through March 11. Pictured: “Dale as Johnny Carson as Burt Reynolds in Playgirl.”