Education:
Foundation Studies in Art and design: Bristol Polytechnic (Now Bristol UWE)
BA (Hons) Fine Art: Kingston School of Art
MA Fine Art: Cardiff School of Art & Design
Artist Statement:
I seem to remember that Gerhard Richter once said that all abstract art communicates by analogy.
Currently a painter, my practice over the years has moved between sculpture, lens-based work and painting; often in pursuit of the same, or very closely related, sets of ideas.
My influences are wide ranging and include modernist and contemporary abstraction, cave art, petroglyphs, and the landscapes that I inhabit and through which I move.
I tend to work on several paintings at a time, they are abstract, and they evolve through process. This process engages with the materiality of paint and colour, and the physicality of gesture. It is a process by which marks are made that animate the surface of the painting, responding to and developing from each other as the work emerges. A developing symbolisation engages remembered and imagined experience and explores a personal, lived spatiality of time, place, movement, and context. Propositions and juxtapositions are found, negotiated, and explored that are intended to be in some way ambiguous, unexpected, or strange to me. I am always looking to be surprised by what I find and to embrace the awkward and the slightly "off". Whilst this process might occasionally resemble a kind of automatism, it is also the result of conscious decision making and achieving an accommodation of these two, apparently paradoxical, positions is crucial. This methodology is therefore both cognitive and intuitive and is based on the idea of painting as kind of pure research into the act of painting itself that iterates between action and reflection on action.
Teaching experience :
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and have taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
I have developed and Lead various programmes, including:
Foundation Art & Design (UAL) at Bristol School of Art
BEd (Hons) Fine Art Pathway at Bristol UWE
FdA Creative Practices at Bristol School of Art / Bristol UWE
FdA Fine Art at Bristol School of Art / University of Gloucestershire
BA (Hons) Education in Professional Practice at Bristol UWE
BA (Hons) Fine Art at Bristol School of Art / University of Gloucestershire
Integrated Foundation Art & Design at UWE, Bristol
Consultancy etc.:
Former member of the Artists' Committee of the King’s Street Gallery, Bristol.
Founder member of ‘Artery’, an organisation set up to organise temporary and 'pop-up' exhibition venues.
Former Scheme Advisor and External Examiner: Foundation Studies in Art & Design for the Awarding Body Consortium.
Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions:
RWA Bristol
Embankment Gallery, London.
Syon Park Art Centre, London. Three person show with Pip Thompson and Ann-Marie Foster.
The Gallery, Acme Studios, Brixton. Solo Show.
National Museum of Wales. Cardiff.
Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery (Catalogue). Kanagawa, Japan.
The Festival Gallery, Bath. Two person show with Howard Hodgkin.
Brewhouse Gallery, Taunton
Kingswood Civic Centre, Bristol. Solo Show.
Bristol School of Art. Bristol
Talbot Fine Art, Gloucestershire.
Chapter Gallery, Cardiff: Sites and Sensibilities:.
Howard Gardens Gallery, Cardiff.
King Street Gallery Bristol.
The Old Leadworks pop-up Gallery space: A3-Artery Artists Artworx at the Leadworks, Bristol.
John Street Gallery, Stroud.
2021:
Espacio Gallery, Shoreditch. "Abstract" -
Victoria Gallery, Bath. Bath Society of Artists Annual Open exhibition.
2022:
East Cliff House Gallery, Essex. "About the Size of It"
Centrespace Gallery, Bristol. "Imagined Things" – Two person show with ceramicist, Oliver Kent.
La Grange Gallery Cernay-Lès-Reims, France. "Like a Slight Hiccup..." /" Comme un léger contretemps…"(Catalogue).
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield “Paint"
2023:
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield "Beneath the Earth"
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield "Magic"
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield “Abstract”
ACEarts Gallery, Somerton “ACEarts Open”
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield “Fronteer open”
2024:
HOURS Gallery, Bristol. "In the Abstract", Solo show.
Bocabar Arts, Paintworks, Bristol. Group Exhibition.
Terrace Gallery, London. "concrete > abstract". Group Show. (Until 26th may 2024)
Upcoming:
Terrace Gallery, London. "It Rose and it Fell" Terrace Open. Group Show. 29th May - 25th June 2024
Julian is also a musician and a member of the band 'Venn'. See link on the 'Links' page.
Foundation Studies in Art and design: Bristol Polytechnic (Now Bristol UWE)
BA (Hons) Fine Art: Kingston School of Art
MA Fine Art: Cardiff School of Art & Design
Artist Statement:
I seem to remember that Gerhard Richter once said that all abstract art communicates by analogy.
Currently a painter, my practice over the years has moved between sculpture, lens-based work and painting; often in pursuit of the same, or very closely related, sets of ideas.
My influences are wide ranging and include modernist and contemporary abstraction, cave art, petroglyphs, and the landscapes that I inhabit and through which I move.
I tend to work on several paintings at a time, they are abstract, and they evolve through process. This process engages with the materiality of paint and colour, and the physicality of gesture. It is a process by which marks are made that animate the surface of the painting, responding to and developing from each other as the work emerges. A developing symbolisation engages remembered and imagined experience and explores a personal, lived spatiality of time, place, movement, and context. Propositions and juxtapositions are found, negotiated, and explored that are intended to be in some way ambiguous, unexpected, or strange to me. I am always looking to be surprised by what I find and to embrace the awkward and the slightly "off". Whilst this process might occasionally resemble a kind of automatism, it is also the result of conscious decision making and achieving an accommodation of these two, apparently paradoxical, positions is crucial. This methodology is therefore both cognitive and intuitive and is based on the idea of painting as kind of pure research into the act of painting itself that iterates between action and reflection on action.
Teaching experience :
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and have taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
I have developed and Lead various programmes, including:
Foundation Art & Design (UAL) at Bristol School of Art
BEd (Hons) Fine Art Pathway at Bristol UWE
FdA Creative Practices at Bristol School of Art / Bristol UWE
FdA Fine Art at Bristol School of Art / University of Gloucestershire
BA (Hons) Education in Professional Practice at Bristol UWE
BA (Hons) Fine Art at Bristol School of Art / University of Gloucestershire
Integrated Foundation Art & Design at UWE, Bristol
Consultancy etc.:
Former member of the Artists' Committee of the King’s Street Gallery, Bristol.
Founder member of ‘Artery’, an organisation set up to organise temporary and 'pop-up' exhibition venues.
Former Scheme Advisor and External Examiner: Foundation Studies in Art & Design for the Awarding Body Consortium.
Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions:
RWA Bristol
Embankment Gallery, London.
Syon Park Art Centre, London. Three person show with Pip Thompson and Ann-Marie Foster.
The Gallery, Acme Studios, Brixton. Solo Show.
National Museum of Wales. Cardiff.
Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery (Catalogue). Kanagawa, Japan.
The Festival Gallery, Bath. Two person show with Howard Hodgkin.
Brewhouse Gallery, Taunton
Kingswood Civic Centre, Bristol. Solo Show.
Bristol School of Art. Bristol
Talbot Fine Art, Gloucestershire.
Chapter Gallery, Cardiff: Sites and Sensibilities:.
Howard Gardens Gallery, Cardiff.
King Street Gallery Bristol.
The Old Leadworks pop-up Gallery space: A3-Artery Artists Artworx at the Leadworks, Bristol.
John Street Gallery, Stroud.
2021:
Espacio Gallery, Shoreditch. "Abstract" -
Victoria Gallery, Bath. Bath Society of Artists Annual Open exhibition.
2022:
East Cliff House Gallery, Essex. "About the Size of It"
Centrespace Gallery, Bristol. "Imagined Things" – Two person show with ceramicist, Oliver Kent.
La Grange Gallery Cernay-Lès-Reims, France. "Like a Slight Hiccup..." /" Comme un léger contretemps…"(Catalogue).
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield “Paint"
2023:
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield "Beneath the Earth"
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield "Magic"
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield “Abstract”
ACEarts Gallery, Somerton “ACEarts Open”
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield “Fronteer open”
2024:
HOURS Gallery, Bristol. "In the Abstract", Solo show.
Bocabar Arts, Paintworks, Bristol. Group Exhibition.
Terrace Gallery, London. "concrete > abstract". Group Show. (Until 26th may 2024)
Upcoming:
Terrace Gallery, London. "It Rose and it Fell" Terrace Open. Group Show. 29th May - 25th June 2024
Julian is also a musician and a member of the band 'Venn'. See link on the 'Links' page.