exhibitions of the work of Julie Graves
at Jack House Gallery 28th March - 12th April &
Art Space Portsmouth 25th - 30th March 2025
“It’s a strange combination of almost David Hockney meets Salvador Dali. It’s got a surreal quality to it which is very very clever”
Kathleen Soriano
Let’s start, as the show will start, with this accomplished, familiar, slightly eerie local beach scene of Eastney Beach and the quotation it inspired. When Julie and I discussed the artworks she might want to include in what would be a retrospective exhibition, she was very clear that she wanted this painting in the window of the gallery, and her reason was both amusing and very telling: She wanted to confound peoples’ expectations of what would follow this painting with the very different work in the rest of the exhibition. Julie had applied to take part in the Sky Landscape Artist of the Year in 2017, and you would have been forgiven for thinking that she was the least likely artist to apply, let alone find herself selected to take part! Julie’s background was in textiles, taking great pleasure in the materials and tools of textile making, and her work was predominantly grounded in fine weaving and tapestry. On getting to know Julie, as I did over recent years, it became apparent that much about Julie Graves confounded expectation. This foray into mainstream televised arts and the very testing and competitive environment she placed herself in, all the while working in a medium in which she was untrained - not to mention feeling something of an imposter - is just one example.
Julie was immensely proud of making the top three in her heat of the Sky Arts programme, yet equally relieved she didn’t go further as, she confessed, her nerves just couldn’t take it. She was also proud and tickled by Kathleen Soriano’s description of her submission painting, saying “It’s a strange combination of almost David Hockney meets Salvador Dali. It’s got a surreal quality to it which is very very clever”. Julie found it absurd that it could be applied to anything she had made, but also a vindication. Julie was a weaver, a stitcher, a painter, a robot maker, a draughtswoman and a sculptor, whose work is full of ideas beautifully and elegantly executed.
This show of work by Julie Graves has been curated in collaboration with her friends and colleagues Rachel Johnson, Ally Ashworth and Philip Sanderson from ‘Soft Geometry’. The aim is to demonstrate the breadth, beauty and incredible versatility of Julie’s work, and also to try to convey the sense of wonder we felt when unpacking her tissue-wrapped objects, artworks and collections, carefully cocooned in customised boxes and packages typical of Julie’s attention to detail.
Rebecca Crow, Director, Jack House Gallery - February 2025
Exhibition Venues & Opening Times
Jack House Gallery
121 High Street, Portsmouth, PO1 2HW
www.jackhousegallery.co.uk
Private View and book launch: Thursday 27th March, 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: 28th March - 12th April
Wednesday - Sunday 12noon - 4.30pm or by appointment
Art Space Portsmouth
27 Brougham Road, Southsea, PO5 4PA
www.artspace.co.uk
Exhibition dates: Wednesday 25th - Sunday 30th March, 12noon - 4pm
JULIE GRAVES BOOK
JULIE GRAVES artist
To coincide with the show, Julie’s close friend Natalie Dowse has produced a book which achieves what seemed at first impossible - a real sense of the playful, serious and accomplished body of work crammed into too short a life. It aims to give an overview of some of the themes and projects she undertook with such thought and dexterity. Julie was both talented and supremely skilled. She approached her work seriously, with sensitivity and integrity, and with the utmost care and attention. Closer inspection however, reveals that her work was also often injected with the same playfulness and sense of fun that shone through her personality.
Throughout the book you will find texts by people who worked with and knew Julie well, alongside snippets of her own writing about her work. The book will consist of 80 colour pages & will feature wonderful photographs of Julie Graves and her extraordinary work by Duncan Shepherd.
You can pre-order your copy to be collected from Jack House Gallery during the exhibition period at £20, or £23 to include postage. To order online - www.jackhousegallery.co.uk/julie-graves-artist-the-book
The proceeds from the sale of the book will go to Rowans Hospice (Charity No.299731) where Julie spent her final days, as will the profit from sales of the artworks that will be for sale at Jack House Gallery and at Art Space Portsmouth.
