Julia M Oak West Sussex, United Kingdom
I am a spiritual individual who uses drawing to gain insight. I am a caring individual who uses textiles to show case others.
My artwork has two strands, Drawing and Textiles. Sometimes people tell me my drawings look like textiles, however when I am drawing textiles could not be further away. Basically, My drawings are for me and my textiles are for someone else’s criteria. I draw intuitively and meditatively connecting with my spirit world where I am who I want to be, without constraint. I use my pen or pencil as a dowsing rod and allow the paper to show its inner secrets to me.
The divide in my art practice came about through formal art education. My experience was that my drawing practice was not worthy of academia, however since giving up on art education and being true to myself and the need to draw as much as the need to breath I have received national acclaim, being awarded a commission that saw my drawing exhibited at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex in a solo exhibition in 2021.
By contrast the textiles remain at worse, something I do to fulfil criteria set by others. The most rewarding textile project I undertook was to show case the art of over 60 individuals from community groups in and around Chichester when I was the lead artist in creating the Octopus’s Garden at Pallant House Gallery. In 2016.
