Close×

Since graduating from City Art Institute in Sydney with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1984, Julie Williams has been an exhibiting artist and photographer.

Williams started her career as a painter then switched to photography. Although the move to pick up a camera happened a long time ago, there is still a strong painterly foundation to her work.

Williams loves photographing water and says the movement and the way light plays on and through its surface is something she never tires of:

"The sense of awe from nature is powerful and I look to capture this within my work. As I look through the camera at an area of water the size of a human hand I press the shutter to seize vast, unfathomable landscapes from the flow," she says.

Water is a universal metaphor for the passage of time, death and renewal. For Williams this is a very personal metaphor and one reason for photographing a particular river close to her home.

When First I Knew This Place is a series of photographs taken of the waters of the River Lett, at a place called Hyde Park, in the Hartley Valley, between Lithgow and the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. The photos also tell a story of a woman’s grief and healing.

Williams' images are created the moment the shutter is pressed. There is no cropping or manipulation. Williams chooses long shutter speeds and says all it takes is one speck of light, given enough time to move through the frame, to create an illuminated brushstroke. The photographs capture the essence of the wildness and the unpredictability of nature creating images that viewers often perceive to be paintings.

Julie Williams will be exhibiting a selection of her work from ‘When First I Knew this Place’ in a duo show titled Water Magicians, at Syndicate at Danks – 2 Danks Street, Waterloo, Sydney – from 27 June to 14 July 2012.

See more of Julie Williams’ work at www.juliewilliams.net.au

Julie Williams_Untitled 1_2011

Julie Williams_Untitled 6_2011

 Julie Williams_Untitled 8_2011

 Julie Williams_Untitled 12_2011

 Julie Williams_Untitled 25_2011

Julie Williams_Untitled 29_2011

comments powered by Disqus