Julie T. Chapman at Pitzer's Fine Arts

JULIE T. CHAPMAN
AN ARTIST IN NATURE

Julie grew up on a small family farm in central Ohio, where she spent summers working in the garden, baling hay, climbing trees, catching butterflies, and hanging laundry outside. She reared butterflies and moths to adulthood from egg or larvae, caught tadpoles in the pond, and was fascinated by every form of life on their 60 acres of hayfields, trees, and pasture. Her childhood instilled in her a deep love for critters – large, small, scaled, winged, whatever. What she wanted most was a horse which probably explains why she drew them obsessively. Julie started drawing as soon as she could hold a pencil, and has never stopped.

She explored all the graphic media throughout childhood, discovered color media in her teen years, and finally tried oils in adulthood. It was love at first try. In college she majored in computer engineering, and after graduation worked for almost two decades in R&D and marketing at Hewlett Packard – so her art education has come from books and observation.

In the 1990s she began exploring American and Canadian wilderness areas, and began drawing and painting wildlife (at last, something besides horses!). In 2002 she won the Arts for the Parks Grand Prize, which precipitated her move from California to Montana and inspired her to become a full-time artist. The painting that won, Illumination, was based on material from a week she spent observing grizzly bears in the coastal wilds of Alaska.

She spends a lot of time each year in pursuit of reference material; and is very privileged to live close to splendid wilderness and wildlife.

Her work has evolved from straightforwardly representational to something with a more contemporary edge – abstract backgrounds, sizzling streaks of color, and big loose brushwork and knifework. Her influences have included masters such as Bob Kuhn, Carl Rungius, Richard Schmid and Wayne Thiebaud – and is also influenced by the wonderful artists who are painting today, such as Oleg Stavrowsky, Roy Anderson, and many others.
She states:
"Art is not a destination, but a journey. "
"What a privilege to be an artist!"