Art Statement

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Julie Leah is a modern abstract expressionist whose art embodies a feeling and a mood of nature with suggestions of figures and of spatial landscapes.

The earth’s tapestry is woven into the artist’s work as she draws inspiration from walks with nature and movement studies in yoga. There is a subtle rhythmic movement to her art.

The artist is known primarily for her textile art, but she began her art career as a mixed media artist. One prophetic day she created a collage using cut-up bits of clothing from her own closet and wondered what other clothes she could paint. With no shortage of inspiration and imagination and a lifelong love of fashion, this prolific artist signed up for silk painting classes, eco-printing with fabric, and shibori with indigo dyes, and so began one of her life’s passions… making wearable art. Her newest wearable art is painted hats.

Her canvas art often explores the textural relationships of different elements, including buttons, threads, fabric, sand, and paper.

It’s her liberal arts education from San Diego State University that first introduced her to art as both a living history and as a fiber of her being. It awakened a creative stirring that she’s explored in literature and many disciplines, including marketing and sales and startup business endeavors.

She intuitively feels a painting move across the canvas. People next to her in her regular art salon often marvel at how she paints that way, moving a block of color here and there and even cutting apart a canvas and laying it upon other canvas bits and pieces until the painting evolves. So often it takes her by surprise, as a painting may begin vertically, but its natural placement may be horizontal. It’s why she’s particularly fond of creating turn-around pieces…a painting that can be turned around every which way.

Inspired and challenged by a quote she once heard in an art class—“a painting should have one focus.” She thought that sounded far too limiting, as a painting can have many points of focus; the more so, the more interesting it may become.

Learn More

For more info on Julie Leah's art, visit JulieLeahart.com or @artysilk on Instagram.