Julia Powles draws upon experiences from her own life to underpin an art practice that is both open-ended and project-based. Working across a range of media she produces bodies of thematic work informed by familial events, psychoanalysis, feminism and her own fiction writing. Intuition underpins Powles’s practice as she expertly chooses and manipulates her materials to illustrate idiosyncratic or highly subjective experiences: ideas around love, grief and longing take the form of echoes, ghosts, repetitive patterns and erasures in her artworks, while snippets of text appear to act upon us in the same manner as an overheard whisper.Meaning, for Powles is something to be searched for. With this in mind we can understand her use of abstraction as a mechanism for truth-telling: Venn diagrams describe family structures, irreconcilable forces are held in equilibrium through formal means, colours harmonise and clash, space is simultaneously deep and shallow, forms emerge and collapse, purity becomes diluted, words command either direct attention or offer poetic imaginings. Contexts always shift and change.Julia Powles studied at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, majoring in drawing. She holds a Master’s Degree by Research and a Master of Curatorial Studies from the University of Melbourne. She has been awarded grants and residencies, including the Ursula Hoff Prize for Art History at the University of Melbourne and Australia Council of the Arts Project Grants. She has had group and solo exhibitions in Melbourne, London and Germany and has curated exhibitions in a range of public and private galleries and museums within Australia. She has work in public and private collections in Australia, Spain and Germany. 
ARTWORKS
Night Visions, 2024
Acrylic polymer paint on vintage blankets belonging to the artist’s mother
220.0 x 170.0 cm
Copyright the artist
How much is too much, 2024
Remnant tapestry wool, cotton
50.0 x 32.0 cm Ed. 2/3
Copyright the artist
The story of the happy family, 2024
Acrylic polymer paint on vintage blankets belonging to the artist’s mother
220.0 x 170.0 cm
Copyright the artist
Family Histories, 2024
Acrylic polymer paint on vintage blankets belonging to the artist’s mother
220.0 x 170.0 cm
Copyright the artist
The Visitor, 2024
Acrylic polymer paint on vintage blankets belonging to the artist’s mother
225.0 x 130.0 cm
Copyright the artist
Trust your animal instincts, 2024
Remnant tapestry wool, cotton
50.0 x 32.0 cm
Copyright the artist
BIOGRAPHY
Lives and works on Wurundjeri land in Narrm,/Melbourne, Australia
Education
2013 Master of Art Curatorship, University of Melbourne
2007 Master of Arts by Research, University of Melbourne.
1996 Graduate Diploma (Fine Art), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne
1990 Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art), Victoria College, Prahran
Awards + Prizes
2016 City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program for Starting Point: The Gallery Turned Inside Out, a series of curated exhibitions, events and programs at Kings Artist Run.
2015 Australia Council for the Arts Project Grant for Exchange Value: when an artist is employed to be an artist, a curatorial project with accompanying book.
2014 City of Melbourne, Arts Development Grant for Limitless City: abstraction and authenticity, a three-month series of curated exhibitions and events at Kings Artist Run.
2014 Arts Victoria, Arts Development Grant for Limitless City: abstraction and authenticity, a three-month series of curated exhibitions and events at Kings Artist Run.
2013 Artist in Residence, Leipzig, Germany
2012 Arts Victoria Project Grant, for My House is Too Small, an artist residency program.
2011 Ursula Hoff Scholarship for Art History, The University of Melbourne (Inaugural winner)
2011 Programming Grant, Australia Council for the Arts, to support the curatorial project Start at Blindside ARI
2010 Artist in Residence, East China Normal University, Shanghai, PR China
2009 Australia Council for the Arts New Work Grant.
2006 Australia Council for the Arts New Work Grant.
2006 Rupert Bunny Fellowship New Work Commission, City of Port Phillip (Inaugural winner)
Solo Exhibitions
2024 (Upcoming) Staying at Home on Saturday Night, Blockprojects, Narrm
2021 Measuring the Rain, Blockprojects, Narrm
2020 Flight Path, Incinerator, Narrm
2017 Pluto in Capricorn, NKN Gallery, Narrm
2016 My Father was a Rock Star, Bus Projects, Narrm
2010 Dancing Without Lessons, Blindside Exhibition Space, Narrm
2008 The Uncertain Nature of Water, a City of Port Philip project exhibiting work made with the support of the Rupert Bunny Foundation, St Kilda Town Hall Gallery
2007 Drift, Victorian College of the Arts Gallery, Narrm
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Bayside Art Prize, Bayside Gallery, Narrm
2024 What We Feel and What We Know, Julia Powles and Peter Westwood, Verein für Original-Radierung, Munich, Germany
2023 Unbecoming, Jacob Hoerner Galleries, Narrm
2023 Bayside Art Prize, Bayside Gallery, Narrm
2023 The Permanence of the Temporary, Justin Art Museum, Narrm
2021 How it happened Here, Five Walls, Narrm
2020 How Soon is Now, Blockprojects, Narrm
2018 Paperwork, Collage and its expanded field, Second Floor Gallery, Narrm
2018 Wonderlust, Bus Projects, Narrm
2018 Outside In, Blockprojects, Narrm
2017 The colour, the shape, NKN Gallery, Narrm
2017 The Confessional, Mailbox Artspaces, Narrm
2017 Spring 1883, The Establishment Hotel, Sydney
2014 Incidents Above a Bar: Asylum, curated by Elizabeth Newman and David Palliser, The Alderman, Narrm
2014 Asteroid, curated by Anna Roland, Spinneri Gallery, Leipzig, Germany
Collections
Artbank, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Rupert Bunny Foundation, City of Port Philip Collection
The Hutchin’s Foundation, Legal Aid Victoria, National Australia Bank Collection, Justin Art Museum