Julie Stewart:
Nelson
In 1996,I obtained my B.A. Fine Arts from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
As my husband originally hails from Dunedin, I had visited NZ, particularly the South Island many times. Nelson district was very attractive for us and after experiencing another extreme Melbourne Summer, in mid 2010 we relocated to a lifestyle property near Wakefield.
In the South Island the mountains and wonderful cloud formations are inspirational. My current work explores rnountains as landscape. Working in oils, I strive for atmosphere and luminosity. In the mountains, the light constantly changes; sometimes dramatic and harsh, sometimes soft and unifying but always beautiful. I am also influenced by the Romantic Painter Casper David Friedrich, J.M-W. Turner, and Australian artist, Richard Clements, who searched for the sublime.
My painting has become an evolutionary process, developing as the surface is worked and reworked to create a sense of time and place; a journey of discovery into memory, space and solitude.