Julienne Harris

Born in Sydney, Australia, Julienne Harris currently lives and works in Blackheath NSW. 

Harris studied at the National Art School, Sydney where she was awarded the school Print Prize and then at the Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education, Sydney. From 1976-1979 Harris continued her studies in London,UK learning restoration and water gilding with Bourlets (Sothebys).

Harris received the Artlink Prize at the Mosman Gallery and a residency at Bundanon in 2002. Winner of the Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize in 2008 judged by Terence Maloon, a survey exhibition curated by the Hawkesbury Regional Gallery toured some of Australia’s finest regional galleries between 2007-2009. She has been a Wynne Prize finalist and her paintings have been exhibited in previous Salon des Refuses and Year in Art exhibitions at the SH Ervin Gallery. She was the recipient of the AGNSW studio at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2009.

She was the winner of the Fleurieu Prize in 2011 judged by Ted Snell, Janet Laurence and Nick Mitzevich and artist in residence at Taronga Zoo. Harris was awarded the Kedumba Drawing Prize in 2014.
Harris exhibited with the Hughes gallery in Sydney until their closure in 2015 and currently exhibits with Conny Dietzschold Gallery, Sydney. Her work is represented in numerous public and private collections in Australia, Europe and the US. Throughout her career she has developed a pictorial language of considerable integrity.

~”I’m interested in the processes of abstraction and the creation of an abstract space. My work is about connections and my process is one of constantly making and unmaking, breaking and repairing and solving the riddles of relationships within the work. My painting process is very physical and more like an evolving performance. The works are taken in and out of the studio according to the weather, the heat and the strength of the sunlight. These things influence the way the paint forms and mingles on the canvas. I wash, scrub, erase and stain the surfaces so a history of the activity remains but no intentional gestures are left. As the work builds up it takes on it’s own identity and an internal logic is found. Chance plays an integral role and the quote I like is one describing John Cage’s approach to work where :

-”Chance is not viewed as the enemy of rational structures, but accepted as evidence of a wider orderliness of nature beyond human control or understanding.” Julienne Harris, 2017

~“Another artist who has given us a high-intensity version of her signature work is Julie Harris whose ‘Extended Summer’ fairly leaps off the wall. Although I’m accustomed to Harris’s abstracted landscapes in which blurred patches of colour and grainy dabs of pigment cluster on the surface, I wasn’t prepared for the ferocious glare she has extracted from this picture. A brilliant light bounces off an imaginary body of water lit by highlights of red blue and green. It looks like an acid bath in which bodies – or at least consciousness – might be dissolved”. John Mc Donald SMH 6/08/2016

 

Read about Julie’s work and previous exhibition at Despard Gallery in USA Art News article, link below:

“My painting process is very physical and more like an evolving performance” – Julie Harris