J. D. grew up in south Wales and studied Fine Art - Painting (B.A.)
at
St. Martins School of Art, and a Postgraduate diploma at the Royal
Academy of Arts Schools, London, where she concentrated on
composition. She moved back to Wales in 2019, lives near the Brecon Beacons and works at Coleg Gwent. She now makes her artwork in the studio she built in the garden.
“Norway - I had a research grant to go to Norway in 1998 and stayed there for 5 years,
including a year in Tromsø, in the Arctic north. The Norwegian landscape was very inspiring –
a stillness, darkness, vast spaces, white plains, pine forests, Nordic architecture, spiky mountain ranges; - a dramatic, very physical landscape.
I focused on drawing while there and learnt that my artwork comes from the landscape." I currently work with drawings on paper and installations using drawings as a material.
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Mark Making. I am interested in mark making, in the language and development of marks, in forms and in abstract marks
Minimalism. I like minimalism and the repetitive and structure in musical composition. Seeing the repetitive in nature
and translating into mark making (I wanted to join a minimalist club and my friend said, oh not many members then).
Attempting to draw the essence of something, simplifying images to basic lines.
Maps - I like looking at maps – a language of marks. I like the
lines and the different visual languages. I am interested in the
possibilities of a mapped visual language.
Topography - the surface forms and features of an area, or
description (especially their depiction in maps). Topography -
“the visual description of the surface features of a region, eg
its hills, valleys or rivers”, and “the representation of these
features” on a map” (or artwork).
Terrain.... the terrain.....
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Plant forms, tree roots, reeds, swamps, hurricanes, earth, peat
and coal, mud, storms, swamps, stone walls, geometric forms,
lichen, moss, seaweed, the river source, gales, tree forms,
leaves, rock and mountain formations, huts, sheds - simple
architectural forms, boulders, stones, ice on lake shores.
I try to show similarities that I observe in both nature and
weather conditions and in man’s nature, eg stormy weather,
serene, ordered, violent, calm, hurricanes, volcanic – extremes
in both nature/ landscape/ weather, and in man’s inner nature /
psychological make up / behaviour.
The drawings are a language of marks, images and lines, built
into compositions.
Julia is based in the Brecon Beacons, Wales.
May 2023
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Wolf
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