Julie Hedrick is a Canadian artist known for her abstract and vibrant oil paintings. Through the span of her career, recurring elements are visible in her paintings; yet they consistently experience artistic evolution, resulting in a coherence that is highly unique. The work is a direct effect of her open and spacious studio, housed in an old church chapel, operating as a temple of meditation and creation.
Hedrick’s art displays a characteristic peeling texture – a tactile, terrene, and humane quality that belongs to the visible and material world, connecting to the environment and human senses. Another notable quality is the nature of her paintings, visual poems of an exquisite delicacy and a bursting energy. They combine in such perfect harmony, that they achieve a rare and personal expressive power beyond words and images. The works become part of her meditations on nature, the earths’ spiritual planes, and the collaborations with her husband, musician Peter Wetzler.
There is also a color property that evolves in a directly parallel way to Hedrick’s artistic and personal development. In her early series, the colors have a shaded appearance, almost like a nebula in constant flux; however in recent years, she has used a more solid application of color, tending to a monochromatic essence. Hedrick often choses the predominance of a primary color, according to the perceptions she receives from the moment we live, in connection to that particular color.
Hedrick’s compositions have an ancestral sensitivity, the painting of universal concepts that goes back to the origins of human existence. She easily achieves a connection with the spectator, through works and concepts that are deep but unaffected, direct, natural and transparent.
Born in 1958 in Toronto, Canada, Julie Hedrick now lives and works in Kingston, New York. She is a Graduate of the Painting Studio Program, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD). She also studied anatomy and physiology, and has been writing poetry since 1990. Hedrick has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Canada. She has also participated to great acclaim in performances, poetry readings, set designs and discussion panels.
