Julie is a South African artist, based in Cape Town, specialising in large oil portraits of African woman and children.
She was born in Johannesburg, and completed her Fine Arts degree at Pietermaritzburg University in 1990. After taking an opportunity to work in the IT industry, she ended up staying there for many years. It was only when she moved to Cape Town in 2010, that she started painting again.
Africa is her inspiration. This can be seen in her subject matter, as well as her use of beautiful traditional African beads and Shwe Shwe fabric.
Julie’s portraits were influenced by her work with children in the townships in Johannesburg where she taught at a Saturday School. Her paintings capture the expression and emotion, seen mostly in the eyes of her subjects, often showing the strength of the woman she paints, and vulnerability of the children.
Her art is very tactile and needs to be seen and felt in real life to get the full effect. She uses colour, wide brushes, stencils, beads and fabric, together with her palette knife to add character to her paintings.
She has exhibited her work at a number of galleries in Cape Town. Her paintings hang in people’s homes in Alaska, Switzerland, Poland, India, Canada, the UK and in many beautiful homes in South Africa.
“The eye never forgets what the heart has seen” - African Proverb
