Julia is a Welsh artist living in Mid-Wales.

Words by Julia...
The way I paint is from inside me. It’s not some mechanical action learned or mimicked: my work is a portrayal of all my happy, sad, joyous and turbulent feelings. I think that my passion for painting is revealed through my approach to my work. My work has been described as energetic, vibrant, theatrical, romantic and erotic. Certainly, I feel that it expresses the essential me.

I want people not only to look at my work: I want them to feel it, both with their eyes and their hearts. I want to create an emotion inside them, because to create something that stirs feeling inside the onlooker is a great achievement.

I was brought up and educated in Pontardawe, near Swansea. As a child I spent most of my time with my grandparents on their farm. These were happy times: looking after the animals, collecting wild mushrooms with my grandmother, walking the fields with my grandfather, and being more of a hindrance than a help at harvest.

I went to Cwmtawe Secondary School, where I had an inspiring teacher called Mr Griffiths who encouraged me and helped me enormously. We kept all my work and built up a portfolio. Armed with this, and with his enormous faith in me, I passed an entrance examination for the Swansea College of Art where I studied fashion and design.

After many years’ absence from my beloved painting, while bringing up two beautiful children, the desire I feel to paint, and my passion for painting, have become so strong that I have a physical ache inside me if I am not painting.

I had my first exhibition in April 2006 at A-Frame Gallery in Brecon, selling ten original paintings on the first night alone.