CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM Julie Davidson

Julie Davidson's highly representational and formally rigorous paintings position themselves within a broadly pluralistic, contemporary interest in both the literal and existential. Behind the modest restraint of each of her subjects – cloth, vessel, fruit and plant – an interrogation is being set up between perceptions of the domestic and ritual, the banal and cherished.

'Still life invites us to meditate on beauty, morality and truth. In my work I took to the techniques of the old masters, using the art of the past to inform the present practice. I also use digital photography, a tool of the present, to arrest time and capture it as a precise moment. I use dramatic light to capture the essence of the moment, whether it be the highlighting of a seemingly insignificant object, or the capture of a fleeting gaze or gesture.’
Julie Davidson

'The transience Davidson seeks to evoke is reflected in the shifting nature of the light she chases, and her meticulously painted flowers. Though captured in full bloom they bring an awareness of the cycles of nature and the reality of impermanence, as eventually they too will decay. The concept of impermanence is enshrined in Eastern philosophies, and this body of work features another prevalent reference to Asian culture – the ancient landscape painting tradition of China.'
Excerpt from essay by Marguerite Brown, 2017

Davidson was a finalist in the Eutick Still Life Award, runner up in the Warwick Regional Gallery Art Prize and finalist in the Blake Prize for Religious Art and the Mandoorla Art Prize, winning the People’s Choice award for the latter. She has produced a number of commissioned portraits and works are represented in private and corporate collections in Australia and overseas.