Paint 2022 Relationships and Limitations Tours Tasmania, Launceston 2022 Devonport 2023

https://vimeo.com/731603021

https://issuu.com/pennyburnett/docs/paint_2022_relationships_and_limitations_-_chromac?fbclid=IwAR09dab0TcVnOrfk2ZvZWeeYlWF3qcXl_zuFSLxgMVoF_gi807BMoZs45bk

Group exhibition curated by Penny Burnett. Artists:Cash Brown, Penny Burnett, Jane Giblin, Amber Koroluk-Stephenson, Michael Nay, Sue Nettlefold, Tania Price, Meg Walch, Alex Wanders and Julie Williams.

Poimena Gallery, Launceston 2022. RANT gallery, Devonport 2023

AR+COLLECT BATHURST REGIONAL GALLERY EXHIBITION AUGUST 2020

During Covid-19, BRAG has been busy documenting its permanent collection. The current collection focus exhibition is ‘Hill End highlights’, an examination of the town’s significance to the story of Australian art.

The exhibition includes works by the the first wave of artists to venture out from Sydney in 1947, as well as the resurgence in the mid 90’s as a result of Gavin Wilson’s Hill End survey exhibition at AGNSW, a snapshot of works by past Hill End AIR participants since 1999, and contemporary artists who call Hill End their home.

Thrilled to be included in the exhibition with a painting in the collection Carver’s Cottage, Hill End 2011. oil on canvas. Carver’s cottage has been painted by Margaret Olley and Donald Friend amongst other artists captivated by Hill End throughout its history. The cottage is lived in by two dear friends and is very much a part of history and contemporary life. This painting was first exhibited in 2011 at BRAG and was part of a series of work tracing old buildings over the landscape in an exploration of Home.

Carver’s Cottage, 2011 oil on canvas.

The Joy of Painting. Willoughby Arts Workshop. SDEHS Photography Digital Media, Visual Design and Visual Arts educator 2018-20

Julie taught a term of ‘The Joy of Painting’ in 2019 for her friend and fellow artist Gria Shead. This has led to a regular Zoom and painting workshop with former students during Covid 19 lockdown. A planned exhibition, the Hill End festival and studio work all put on hold due to travel restrictions in early 2020, however work is now buzzing along in the Hill End studio :) Sydney Distance Education, teaching Yr 7-12 has meant an income and way to keep the mind occupied during lockdown. Enjoying trips to artist studios on the Zoom Bus. Purchased a beautiful artwork from WPCC by Fleur McDonald to beat off the blues. Brilliant overnight stay on Cockatoo Island to visit Nirin, Sydney Biennale which was extended thank goodness. Exhibition details for 2021 in progress…

Solo Exhibition 'Tracing Threads', Sheffer Gallery, Sydney NOV 1-10th 2018

"https://e.issuu.com/anonymous-embed.html?u=grazmaz&d=566_julie_cat_final_print_lo_res" 

 Link above to Julie Williams ‘Tracing Threads’ catalogue, images from Julie’s Solo Exhibition Sydney, writing by Sonia Legge and Luke Sciberras.

Singapore Inspiration

I take great inspiration from the Singapore landscape, especially Tiong Bahru where I have my studio. I love the Heritage Buildings and traditional Wet Market.  Peranakan culture is also a huge passion. I have enjoyed visiting homes, museums, restaurants, houses and meeting as many people as I can in Singapore and Penang.

Nature of Existence

These selected works can be purchased from Michael Reid at Murrurundi in the Upper Hunter, NSW. They are 60x40cm, Oil on Linen and part of the series 'Nature of Existence' 

OPENING 2PM BY GAVIN WILSON - WESTERN PLAINS CULTURAL CENTRE, PROJECT SPACE, DUBBO, NSW

‘The Nature of Existence - The Long View' - an exhibition by Julie Williams  - an essay by curator Gavin Wilson

Gazing at the native leaf litter underfoot in the Parramatta Lakes district west of Sydney, Julie Williams seized upon a key motif that would animate her recent series of paintings

Working as an art teacher in the nearby Juvenile Detention Centre for over six years, Williams had the opportunity to develop an intimate relationship with the place. Through the indigenous juveniles she mentored, the artist was introduced to respected local elders. Revelations that emerged from encounters with the indigenous custodians of the region were coupled with the artist’s strong links to Hill End, a remote historic site high in the ranges behind Bathurst.

Patterns of habitation and connections to country began to evolve. The concept of home resonated in the artist’s imagination. After emigrating from England in 1980, Williams at first found the Australian landscape hostile and bewildering. The notion lingered on until coming upon Hill End where the artist discovered a community she could relate to, with its deep sense of history and complex settlement patterns interwoven with the landscape. The old wattle and daub mining cottage, purchased with fellow artist Janet Haslett, rose precariously off the ground. As with most of the gold rush dwellings in Hill End dating back to the 1870s, there was a sense of impermanence – the natural environment claiming superiority over the built.

There is nothing provisional about Julie Williams’ engagement with Hill End. The cottage known as Collaroy Cot is in an on-going state of restoration. Over time, the occupants have maintained the vernacular fabric of the place which has become a significant source of inspiration in the artist’s practice.

 In a number of Williams’ previous works exhibited at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2011, elegant outlines of historic buildings tended to haunt the landscape, reinforcing a sense of impermanence; of time passing. The recent series, that again reaches beyond the specifics of time and place, focuses on an eerie domestic realm animated by aspects of the exterior world. The phenomenon is manifest in elements such as; ‘wallpapers reflecting leaves outside, ephemeral (mud) walls, and windows that bring nature outside in’.

The reality of living in close contact with country was made clear to Williams while developing a friendship with indigenous elder Uncle Des Dyer, who indentifies as a Darug man, active within the Parramatta Lakes community. As the artist got to know him, she began to empathise with his deep sense of loss and dispossession. The shadows and stains instilled into the carefully glazed, modulated tones of the canvases on exhibition, such as ‘Banksia Trail’, impart a weighty atmosphere: a melancholic ode to vivid memories of time past. Uncle Des relates: ‘Every time I come back to Hunts Creek or Parramatta Lakes I feel it is like coming home. I love my memories I like to remember how my grandparents made humpies out of whatever they could scrounge and my swimming in the little creeks and our vegetable garden. A safe memory which makes me feel at peace after all the chaos which ensued in later childhood. I love this place so passionately to this very day’. 

The oral history of indigenous elders such as Uncle Des is vital in the on-going custodianship of the site. Supporting Uncle Des’s reverie, shelter caves, stone flaking, tree scars, hand stencils and midden deposits have all been identified as evidence of a vibrant culture that once inhabited the Parramatta Lakes region.

The artist’s poetic response to the place known as home has been informed by a number of disparate influences. Edouard Vuillard’s layered domestic interiors; the organic motifs in the decorative wallpapers of William Morris; Liepzig artist Mattias Weischer’s formal use of interior  architectural details; the spatial dynamics of Sung Dynasty painting and Francis Bacon’s tracing of interior spaces have all stirred the artist’s imagination in the evolution of the series.

Finally, in this highly-personal body of work, the artist has established a metaphysical space that reflects on the temporary nature of habitation. The landscape endures: our presence passes. Houses in all manifestations contain palpable evidence of the cultural imperatives that shaped the lives and animated the spaces that generations of people have called home.

JAYES GALLERY, MOLONG. NSW

A floor talk by Julie Williams, Hill End Artist at her opening at Jayes Gallery in Molong NSW provides an insight to how the artist works and the ideas that have inspired these strong statements about Hill End and Molong. This exhibition of paintings was curated by Joy Engelman.