Julie Chiffey
Born in country Victoria, Julie found the Australian landscape and regional surrounds a rich source of inspiration and fascination from an early age.
In 1972, Julie graduated as a Secondary Art and Craft teacher and later attained a Bachelor of Education and Graduate Diploma in Graphic Communication Education. During her final years as an undergraduate student, Julie majored in painting; the coalescence of her passion for painting and aptitude for education informed and fuelled Julie’s subsequent thirty-seven year teaching career across various Victorian schools.
Full-time work while raising two children left little time for painting and it wasn’t until 2009, when Julie joined The Melbourne Studio School under the tutelage of artist Richard Birmingham, that the joy of the art form was rediscovered and worked back into daily practice.
With new techniques and confidence refreshed, Julie began exhibiting works with The Melbourne Studio School and in other small group exhibitions.
Since 2009, Julie has honed life-drawing skills with Yvonne Audette at The Hawthorn Artists Society, finding the practice particularly useful in sharpening observational skills, which form the bones and nourish the integrity of the painted surface.
Since retiring from teaching in 2012, Julie has immersed herself in her craft, drawing on recent travels to East Africa and Western Australia for inspiration and new narratives.
Artist Statement
Landscapes and nature are an endless source of inspiration. In my depictions of the land I seek to unearth the unseen and unknown: there’s far more to the story than what our eyes detect on the surface of things and these shades of detail come through on the canvas or paper with mark making, colours and textures.
In every abstract landscape there lies a hidden narrative: shapes, rocks, trees and other miscellaneous forms come forth as figures or important pieces of an unfolding story. Of particular fascination to me are the surface lines, shapes, colours and texture of rock formations, which over time are moulded, weathered and transformed by the elements into beautiful painted surfaces. Acrylic, oil paint and mixed media lend themselves best to capturing these subjects of nature and the essential variation of surface.
I’ve long admired and been inspired by Australian artists such as Fred Williams, John Olsen, John Wolseley, Ian Fairweather, Elisabeth Cummings and Sophie Cape, who each capture the mysteriousness, diversity and beauty of Australian landscapes with honesty and vigour.
Group Exhibitions
2015 East Africa and Other Places Steps Gallery Carlton
2014 Three Minds Meet Steps Gallery Carlton
2013-4 Quadrant Gallery Summer Exhibition Hawthorn
2013 Melbourne Studio School-Cambridge Gallery Collingwood
2011 Melbourne Studio School Bright Space Gallery St Kilda
2009 Melbourne Studio School-Glen Eira Gallery Caulfield