AWARD-winning North Yorkshire-based artist Julia Burns is best known locally for her charming and affordable animal potato prints, which are fast becoming collectors’ items. But her passion for painting is writ large on her huge, stunning abstract canvases, which sell for up to £5,000 and hang in private collections all over the world. They have also been exhibited in Japan and the States.
Now a small, pioneering gallery in North Yorkshire is staging an exhibition of Julia’s paintings, perfectly balanced studies of colour, shape and form, many of which have not been seen in public before.
Born in County Durham, Julia grew up in a creative household. “My father was an architect and was passionate about aesthetics and design. In the school holidays we would travel throughout Europe, visiting galleries and world famous buildings.”
Red Funnel
She won a number of prestigious national awards in her teens before going on to study painting at The Slade. “As well as my dad, I had a wonderful art teacher, Sheila Coggrave, when I was at school in Sunderland. She taught me to observe and record accurately and was really encouraging,” says Julia.
It was when she was commissioned to paint a series of pictures based on the River Tyne for chef Eugene McCoy’s restaurant on the top floor of the Baltic gallery in Newcastle, that Julia made the leap towards producing pure, abstract works.
“I got so bored with shapes that became something, like a bowl or a piece of fruit, so I started off with the Tyne and the Sage building, with the bridge and hoops and circles and they just absolutely naturally became shapes that leapt into abstract," she says. “It took me years to get there, there were no shortcuts. They are not spontaneous at all. They require a lot of thought and can’t be rushed, but they make perfect visual sense to me.”
Pink
Julia Burns exhibition September 19 to Oct 31: Gallery Beyond, The Barn, Church St, Nunnington, York YO62 5US. T: 01439 748584/01904 310205/07900 998242 W: beyondart.co.uk
Red Hen Originals potato print art: W: redhenoriginals.com
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