Local artist profile: Julie Andrews

THIS week we speak with local artist Julie Andrews.

What motivated you to become an artist?

I can’t remember a time that I didn’t love making art and particularly working with paint to make pictures. Although, having said that, much of my early career was in the public sector and it wasn’t until my children had grown up and left home, that I seriously started to pursue art. In 2010 I went back to university to study art full time, completing a bachelor of visual arts at La Trobe University in Bendigo and a masters in art at RMIT in Melbourne.

How would you describe your style?

My work is usually presented as large oil paintings, depicting a dream-like space using obscured layers, tonal colours, blurred edges and drifts of floating orbs. Some of my work is highly abstracted, while others hint clearly at a familiar landscape, often based on a memory as an attempt to distil the feeling of a place, its atmosphere, mood or a spiritual experience, rather than a figurative observation.

Are there any themes you like to feature in your artworks?

A theme that has fascinated me for a long time is the idea of liminal space as a threshold space, full of possibilities. I find this liminal space can offer a place to sit with the paradox of the familiar, distant, blurred and yet unrecognisable in a type of in-between place.

I would like to think that my work is both comforting and familiar, and yet also on closer investigation full of the unknown and our flawed humanness. It is in the relationship between the physical process of making art and the materials and techniques I use, that I encounter the deeper currents of the work. I want my work to make a difference, as a whisper to the unconscious of possibilities otherwise unnoticed.

Which artists inspire you?

Gerhard Richter is a favourite because he has done so much and escaped being typecast to any one particular art style or genre of painting. I also love the way his blurred paintings were so successful at suggesting movement, travel and memory, all themes I gravitate toward.

In Australia, I have a couple of favourites. Artist Euan Macleod who produces large evocative works of a figure in the landscape and the beautiful tonal work of Clarice Becket, who has had a strong influence on my work.

What are some highlights that you have from your career?

I have held over 25 solo exhibitions and contributed to over 35 group shows throughout Australia, which are full of wonderful memories. Overseas residencies and exhibitions at the SoHo Gallery Singapore, the Shipley Gallery England and at 33 Bund Gallery, Shanghai, China have also been career highlights.

How has your practice been affected by COVID?

The pandemic was tricky for everyone. I had exhibitions postponed and events cancelled but the upside was that I had uninterrupted time in the studio. As restrictions lifted, there was still a COVID shadow which affected the turnout at openings and exhibitions, but it was wonderful to start feeling connected again.

How can people find your work?

I am represented and exhibit with a gallery at Lorne, Qdos Fine Art, and my work is held in their stockroom when not exhibited.

In Bendigo I also offer my work directly from my studio in Maiden Gully.