Julia

Julia Catherine Robinson 19th July 1965 – 4th August 2010

Julia’s ashes were scattered along the shores of Gwenver and White sand beach on the North Cornish Coast. It was julia’s most favorite place in the whole world and always brought back fond memories of her child hood holidays with her grandparents.

Julia was my life partner and we were together for 26 glorious years. For a long time I have wanted to dedicated a good part of this website to Julia and our life together. Like me Julia was an artist. This will be a work in progress and it will take some time to do……

 

This was our first visit to Beezley Falls near Ingleton 1985 ….

We met one night in 1984 at the freshers night at the student union of the polytechnic Wolverhampton …. though I saw her before that evening in front of me as I was walking down the stairwell of the art block …. it was a defining moment in my life ….. but perhaps that id not the place to start …..

 

…. Julia was an artist just like myself, self employed, and living the life of an artist …..

 

Untitled (Blues and Bronze) Oil on canvas 135 x 110 cm

This painting by Julia was purchased by The Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum in 1998, a free museum, in the 18th-century Grade I-listed former almshouses on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch, London, and the painting is on permanent display in the museum exploring the interior’s of lthe ate 20th century

…. Colourfield painting was what Julia loved most, the emotive potential of colour to evoke an emotional response in the viewer ….

…. Her influences included Early renaisance painting, Polish folk art, the fauvists, expressionism, abstract expressionisn, late 20th century conceptual artists – from Rothko to Yves Klein to later artist such as Cornelia Parker, Anish Kappor, Wolfgang Leib ….

…. Julia was a humanist, and never forgot her roots – being half Polish her interest in Polish history, Polish folk art Polish poster design fed directly into her work – and on her english side that her grandfather worked as a coal miner all his life it all came through in her artwork….

…. from Foundation to degree to postgraduate scholarship to M.A. the emotive power of colour to convey meaning to the human condition was her driving theme ….

 

 

…. There is a story about the artwork above…It starts with a walk in the Tatra mountains to the valley of five lakes .,..

 

 

It was part of a series of artworks inspired from an experience we shared in the Tatra mountains in Poland one winter ….. We decided to walk up to the valley of five lakes, at the start of the walk it was a beautiful day some cloud a fair amount of blue sky and some gently falling snow …. we had minimal equipement but the weather looked to be stable and we had set off in good time to reach the mountain hut in the valley that was situated on the shores of one of the lakes. By the time we got to the head of the valley the weather had really detriated quite severely, some light wind, but heavy snow getting to be a white out situation and the temperature was falling and although still bright it would not be long until the light started to fade. At the head of the valley the path was completely frozen over with thick, clear ice …. very smooth and extremely slippery and we had only the most basic crampons with us. There was a steep drop off to the right and the waterfall at the side of the path was completely frozen. The path was the quickest route to the valley of five lakes and not to steep and only maybe 20 minutes or so would see us in the valley, but it was utterly impassable …. one slip and we would be gone, so I said we cannot go that way.

The alternative was straight up a very steep slope and over the top into the valley and we did this by using our feet to cut steps into the snow which was firm and stable. Eventually we got into the valey and with some relief, we were both knackered and at that point the light was starting to fade, we knew we were close to the lake and we were able to follow the edge of the lake to the left and eventually saw the lights of the mountain hut.

Once we were inside we both noticed something with our eyes …. that everything we looked at ….. the door frame as we looked outside … the window frames …. the chairs, cups, glasses, people all had this glow around them and I asked Julia if she could see the same and she said yes, it quickly dawned on me that the intense light outside had affected our vision but whilst outside we had not noticed, I am not sure if snow blindness is the correct term for this but it may well have been the early onset of such a thing, by the next day our vision was fine again.

It was now full on twilight and once we were inside I think we both had several bowls of zurek and tea to recover …. but visually what we were experiencing was fascinating and this experience led Julia to explore this in quite a few of her colourfield paintings set as they were at the dark of twilight ……

 

….. Julia, our friend from Norway Elisabet, and myself just as we reached the valley of five lakes ….

 

…. Valley of Five Lakes …. next morning ….