Judy Brownlie: Painting

7 September - 28 October 2018

City or Country: it’s all grist to this Hawkesbury artist’s mill

Judy Brownlie’s exhibition is an exploration of city scapes and landscapes, and is the first solo exhibition in this gallery by an artist who has been associated with it from the very beginning. Judy was one of a number of local artists who lobbied for a gallery and who helped with the Hawkesbury City Council’s annual acquisitive exhibition. She has also been associated with a number of local groups, including 20 years as a tutor at the Community Arts Workshop, which was started back in the 1970s as a collaboration between the University of Western Sydney and the community, and is still providing creative opportunities today’.

Brownlie’s land and city scapes, beautifully articulate the artists connection to her surrounds, imbued with a subtle and quiet intimacy. Alongside these contemporary exteriors sit a selection of bold still life painting for which Brownlie is widely known. From the earliest painted in 1979 to the most recent in 2014, these paintings also give wonderful insight into the mind and life of the artist.

But for all her identification with, and love of, the Hawkesbury, the artist’s early years were spent south of the border, and that’s where she learnt to paint —first at Syndal Technical College in Melbourne in 1970, then with Alfred Calkoen and at Alan Martin’s School of painting. She also studied for many years the Max Meldrum’s method of sciences of appearances, which teaches how to paint from life and study tone.

Keen to share with others the knowledge thus acquired, Judy has taught painting for over 40 years, including in France and Italy, and given demonstrations throughout Victoria and New South Wales.

Judy moved to Sydney in 1982 and built a studio for herself at Nelson, running classes and workshops for four years. And in 1986 she and husband Neil moved to Sackville North to follow a dream to build a mud brick house and studio, to which Judy gave the quirky name ‘Le nid’ (the nest).

Judy has had several solo exhibitions and several group exhibitions, and her work is represented in collections throughout Australasia, Europe, England, Hong Kong and Japan.

She has won over 60 major awards in all mediums, including the Camberwell Rotary Travel Grant (1990) which allowed her to study and paint for three months in Europe Turkey, Switzerland, France, England, Belgium and Holland. She has also been a judge of a number of awards and prizes, including the Hawkesbury Art Prize, which has positioned itself as one of the more significant national art prizes in Australia.

Judy is also a member of the Victorian Artists Society, the Royal Art Society NSW, the Macquarie Towns Art Society, and the National Association for the Visual Arts. Capable of working in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture and printmaking, the talented artist has participated in many exhibitions, and was herself the subject of a striking painting by David Newman-White for the 2017 exhibition, Time Leaves Its Mark (pictured).

PUBLIC PROGRAM

JUDY BROWNLIE in Conversation

Saturday 6 October 1.30 – 2.30

Judy will talk about her life in art with Gallery Director, Kath von Witt at 1.30 on Saturday 6 October. $5 per head, bookings though Eventbrite (refreshments served).

Click here to book.

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