Featured Artist: Julie Hammonds

Following the tradition of Fine Art oil painting on canvas, Julie Hammonds’ reputation as a landscape and marine artist has been built over the last thirty-five years of painting in South Devon, UK. Self-taught her early work quickly developed a distinctive style reflecting her love of the countryside. In particular, the changing light, mood and tonal harmonies of the seasons, suffuse her paintings with a contemplative quality. This has become an enduring theme and is reflected in her paintings of the Alps, where the play of light is her inspiration.

Striving to capture the fleeting magic of the last rays of the sun, or the fresh light of a new day has influenced her Courchevel landscapes. Her work became a commercial success following a one-person exhibition which led to commissions from as far afield as America, Australia, New Zealand, and more recently Mexico. The scale of her canvases has become larger, with commissions for hotels and boardrooms complimenting those for more domestic settings. A change in direction combines with a move to a new studio overlooking Plymouth Sound, led to involvement with boats and the sea. Recent works have reflected this interest and Marine Art now features as a strong part of Julie’s portfolio. The sailing of the Mayflower from Plymouth to America in 1620 inspired an exhibition of her paintings, each of the fifteen images is based on a different sentence from the Captain’s Diary. An exhibition of this project was held in the Mayflower Museum, Plymouth from November 2019 to May 2022.

“My work is inspired by the notion of the Collective Unconscious, in particular the universal feelings of emotion and enrichment we absorb from the natural world. I paint to feed my soul and strive to portray that same response in the viewer. Nature, the weather, the changing seasons, and the eternal ebb and flow of life within our precious world are my main influences. Following the tradition of figurative oil painting, my work is an eclectic mix of classical and contemporary subjects. My influences are the rural countryside around my home in Devon UK, and the ever-changing sea outside my studio overlooking Plymouth Sound. The vibrancy and energy of nature reflected in the movement and tonal hues of the sea, balanced against the constant replenishment of new growth and change in the natural world, remind me of the passage of time and of our place in the ongoing rhythm of life. The subjects of my canvases aim to celebrate and capture the impermanence of our world and our place in it.”

more. www.juliehammondsfineart.com