Julie Oldfield Exhibition

About

Julie specialise in skies and landscapes. Inspirations have come from her rural childhood, life on the Jurassic Coast and numerous extended travel periods exploring 6 continents, encountering astonishing landscapes and cultures. She makes sketches and takes photos to capture moments, which can be used later to develop ideas.

The techniques she uses have gone through a number of developmental phases over the years. She started with canvass and became interested in using various textural materials, site-specific earth materials, natural weathering, dipping works into the sea, pastels and spray paints to produce the effects she wanted.

The process of weathering and slow change drew her to experiment with metal sheets and the effects of chemistry, heat and weathering to create patination foundations that she could then develop with traditional art materials. She has been refining her techniques and uses different metals for different effects.Julie's garden is her studio. Her tools are bonfires, various acids and alkalis, grinders, scrapers, brushes, pastels, sprays and natural weathering. Work can be left in her garden to develop for weeks or months, opening up surface possibilities.

Working with science and nature in this way often gives unexpected results, especially with the uneven heat of fires and exposure time, challenging her as an artist to create her work. Every painting is therefore very individual and hard to reproduce.