Featured Artist Julia Lawing

Artist Julia Lawing captures the beauty and spirit of life on the Atlantic coast in her stunning collection of landscape paintings. Visit her website for more.

 

 

“I mine the earth for a few metaphors by which I can see Heaven,” notes writer Andy Squyers. This is why I create art.

 

 

My art is about longing. It is an expression of the ache in my soul for a perfect world, heaven on earth, and the glimpses we catch of it here and now. Our yearning for goodness, truth and beauty.

 

 

I have always drawn, but began oil painting at age 45 and was immediately attracted to its viscosity and the challenge of laying it down in an impressionistic manner. My subjects come from my own life, memories of time well spent with family and traveling to both new and familiar places. Favorite muses include my four daughters and our times at rest and at play.

 

 

My love for the wetland landscape derives from growing up on a small barrier island in coastal Georgia, Saint Simons Island, at eye level with the constant tidal changes of the intercoastal creeks and marshes. They, alongside the centuries-old live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, are a subtle reminder that we are connected to forces greater than ourselves; that beyond our hurried everyday lives we can hear a faint call, a pull from a vastly richer life of serenity and joy. Beauty gently awakens our hearts to the desire deep within, to know and to be known.

 

 

Another inspiring locale for me is Rhode Island, which I was introduced to by my husband. Bruce was raised in Narragansett. We began vacationing with our four daughters there when they were small and I have been mining our family photos lately for new subjects. Beach campfires, lighthouse hikes, ocean play, rocky shores, lobster boils, sailboats and sunsets are warmly making a debut in my sketchbook and on my easel.

 

 

C.S. Lewis aptly articulated that these things or people or experiences are not beauty itself but “are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

 

 

My works are included in private collections across the United States and in a number of corporate collections as well. Since 2019, I have maintained a studio in Concord, North Carolina, just north of Charlotte. But the allure of the coast and other beautiful places doesn’t keep me landlocked for long. Now that our four daughters are grown, I am eager to explore new horizons and artistic adventures.

 

Julia Lawing invites you to follow on Instagram and Facebook.

 

 

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