Julia Pomeroy
Julia Pomeroy (b.1998) is an oil painter from London and has been based in Leeds for the last five years, currently a studio holder at Assembly House, Armley. Pomeroy completed her foundation year at City and Guilds Art School in 2017, graduated from BA Fine Art at Leeds Arts University in 2020 with a First-Class Honours. She is returning to City and Guilds to complete an MA later in 2023.
Julia Pomeroy’s practice elevates narratives surrounding rich energies emitted from contemporary figures within psychologically charged spaces. By using complimentary colour axis’, and techniques to convey glowing atmospheres, her paintings contrast the easily missed beauty and nauseating repetitiveness of our everyday. Constructing dreamscapes, parallel realities of our existents to question familiar contemporary habits, invigorate our seemingly mundane every day and face our decaying quotidian and failing conditioned routines. Inspired by the colour palettes from the impressionists and fauve movement, Pomeroy uses strong colours to build contrasting lights and darks to communicate un-immediate thoughts and feelings while piecing together the stories presented in my settings. Capturing unguarded states of mind, recognising the familiar and often unknown in our revolving lives, and positive and negative reactions to the spaces we utilise. My key themes meet at a cross section between "post"- covid, the optimism and fear of the sublime and climate change, the digital realm, and local, sustainable mindsets practiced by younger people. Artists who influence her practice are Caroline Walker, Jenna Gibbon, Chloe Wise, Rachel Jones, Doron Langberg, Edvard Munch, Joaquin Sorolla and Pierre Bonnard.
Could you tell us more about your background and how you began creating art?
I am from Ealing in West London, part of a small family who are all creatives. My mother enjoys depicting soft landscapes, my father creates colourful abstract paintings and my brother dove into photo and video editing. The range of disciplines my family explored and exposed me to definitely subconsciously directed my own discovery of interests and becoming my own artist. Throughout school I would be distracted in class by creating countless observational studies from everyday objects to pictures of animals, refining my drawing skills and understanding the foundations of depiction. Primarily always being drawn to making representational portraits and figurative works, this is a core subject that ignites my personal direction, strong purpose and important psychological understandings I wish to tackle and discuss. My father and I would do marathons of exhibitions in London, which is what I’m most grateful for coming from this busy, privileged city, from catching blockbuster shows at the National Gallery and Royal Academy to smaller galleries with free exhibitions round the corner like Pitzhanger Gallery.
I have been based in Leeds for the last five years, and I am currently a studio holder at Assembly House, Armley. I completed her foundation year at City and Guilds Art School in 2017, graduated from BA Fine Art at Leeds Arts University in 2020 with a First-Class Honours. I will be returning to City and Guilds to complete an MA in Autumn, 2023.
What does your art aim to say to its viewers?
My paintings aim to invigorate our seemingly mundane everyday, question familiar contemporary habits, and face our decaying quotidian and failing conditioned routines. By using complimentary colour axis’, and techniques to convey glowing atmospheres, my paintings contrast the easily missed beauty and nauseating repetitiveness of our everyday. Inspired by the colour palettes from the impressionists and fauve movement, I use strong, vibrant colours to build contrasting bright lights and darks, juxtaposing superficially joyful hues with harsher truths underlying. Capturing unguarded states of mind and recognising the familiar alongside often unknown in our revolving lives. Through contrasting the sublime and refuge found in nature with the overwhelming digital realm and young lifestyles of intoxication, my newest works meet at a cross-section analysing today's sense of obliviousness, ignorance and hunt for fun and distraction. Communicating un-immediate thoughts and feelings as the viewer pieces together the stories presented in my settings, and hopefully finds these hidden psychologies indirectly relatable to their own every days. I recognise I have a Western understanding of presenting life and the everyday, creating my personal lens and that my works won’t appeal and connect to all, which is an area I wish to explore and break that barrier down in future.
Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your daily routine when working?
For a few years now I have relied on a candid and instinctive photography process, documenting fleeting moments of people I know, friends and family, from my everyday. This developed a sense of voyeurism and intimacy in my imagery as I would take close up portraits and full figure photos before capturing what else was surrounding us at the time. Knowing when the right moment was to take my photos relied on a general luminosity being omitted at the time. This could come in the form of electric light sources from glowing decorative lamps in sombre and mood lit interiors, to sunny walks under blue sky out in nature. There is also an emotional ‘luminosity’ I wish to capture which leans into the personal intentions of my paintings.
I next turn these photos into drawings which is the stage to play around with compositions, warping perspectives, figurative poses, collaging different photos together and understanding specific colour palettes. Taking inspiration from the dynamic light and dark contrasts seen in Caroline Walker's interior paintings to the application techniques of Soralla’s Spanish summer paintings encompasses what I hope to echo in my own practice and paintings.
What is the essential element in your art?
My practice elevates the rich energies emitted from contemporary figures within psychologically charged narratives and spaces. My observational and personal imageries are reconstructed into dreamscapes or parallel realities through paint and exaggerating textures, objects, architectural and natural worlds, and focal figures. Artists who influence her practice are Caroline Walker, Jenna Gibbon, Chloe Wise, RachelJones, Doron Langberg, Edvard Munch, Joaquin Sorolla and Pierre Bonnard. As previously mentioned my initial passion for creating art has always stemed from depicting the figure and capturing their personalities and essences. My realisation of the power of colour emerged from my studies at Leeds Arts University and when I saw the exhibition ‘Pierre Bonnard: The Memory of Colour” in 2018 at the Tate Britain. His beautiful scenery works of his home and garden in the South of France, highlighting precious family moments while processing his own emotions and feelings, are one of the strongest series of artworks I’ve seen using complimentary vibrant colours and sparked my adventure into this process for my own paintings.
In your opinion, what role does the artist have in society?
The artist indulges and criticises experiences, emotions, issues and successes. In hopes to express themselves, and in hopes that others feel recognised, included and can know they can also speak their own voices.
