Julie Bruce

Julie Bruce is a painter based in Skipton, North Yorkshire, whose work is driven by a love of colour, shape and design.

Drawing inspiration from familiar places and everyday surroundings, Julie does not set out to reproduce what she sees. Instead, she takes the shapes, lines and details that catch her attention and uses them as the starting point for paintings that develop through colour and imagination.

For Abstract: Beyond the Landscape, Julie's work takes inspiration from the canal boats of Skipton. Tiny doors and windows, chimneys, fenders, tillers and ropes all provide visual material, alongside layers of peeling paint and the objects carried aboard, from buckets and bicycles to plant pots.

These individual elements are brought together and reworked through Julie's own use of colour and composition. The resulting paintings retain traces of their original inspiration while moving away from literal representation, allowing familiar forms to become something less expected.