Exhibitions

A bridge between my residency on Moverons Farm and the theme of this year’s festival is the Roman god Mars – god of war and agriculture.  His connection with agriculture is not well known, but many soldiers were also farm labourers and the military campaigning season could not begin until after the harvest.  Mars represents military power to secure peace, unlike the Greek god Ares, who was destructive and destabilising.  Mars was called upon to drive off ‘rust’ with is double-meaning of wheat fungus and the red oxide that affects metal – a threat to both weaponry and farm tools.

A local connection: Camulus was a deity of the Celts that the Romans equated with Mars and after whom the name Camulodunum may have derived, the Roman name for Colchester.

For the festival, I will be researching and developing new work, in response to this year’s festival theme of war. My work will be on display during the festival in and around the festival venues.  I will also be running an art workshop at firstsite on Saturday 22 September, during the festival’s Colchester weekend, so do drop in.

A group exhibition of sculpture and photographs with Payne Gunfield and David Trenow.

A site-specific installation in a seasonal pond in the woods – working title ‘The Elders’, together with other sculptures in the woods and gardens.
My new book – ‘Moverons, An artist’s sketchbook’ was launched and is available to purchase from Wivenhoe Bookshop and Red Lion Books.

Entering into the final months as artist in residence at Moverons Farm, this exhibition
reflects Julie’s experiences and emotional responses to the landscape, history and wildlife of the farm through painting, sculpture and photography. There will be a sculpture trail and an exhibition in the barn where refreshments are available.

These images have come about due to my increasing awareness of the disconnect between what one person says and what is heard by the person to whom they are speaking. As with some of my previous works, I have pared down the representation of people to the bare minimum – in these cases simply two lines of black ink. The images have a sense of harmony or disharmony depending on the relationship between the shapes on the two lines.

Works based on natural felted wool underlay from a 16th Century house in Canterbury. ‘With these works I am trying to suggest the subtlest realms of existence, beyond what our ordinary senses can perceive… Dust is part of the fabric of our everyday lives and these works represent the traces we leave of ourselves on the journey from dust to dust.’

“I have experimented with bronze and other media to create birds, which may or may not be figurative, but which contain the essence of ‘birdness’ and capture a sense of vitality and movement. I have found myself working in an in-between world, painting, drawing and sculpting… the action of the drawing and the static of the bronze, a complimentary playful opposition.”