Featured Artist - Julie Dumbarton

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Julie Dumbarton is one of Scotlands best selling artists. Painting in a former weaving mill just over the border in Langholm, she creates magnificent rural scenes that utilise layers of oil paint and a rich wealth of colour to create fantastical images that visibly pop with vibrancy.

Her paintings are all about colour, she is always after that ‘colour statement’ – spatially complex, a high or low perspective of densely knotted vegetation, a frantic pattern of grained wood or choking greenery that can be so visually claustrophobic it has to be rescued by some sense of the landscape it lies in.

click here for Julie’s current exhibition listing on DGWGO.com

Her unique paintings are now highly sought after and collected both in Scotland, the UK and all over the world.

Julie moved to Dumfries & Galloway ten years ago, and continues to be inspired by the unique landscape that is on offer there. With coastlines – both sandy and rocky – lochs and hills, forests and fields there’s plenty there for her to draw upon, and she often heads out to explore the area, not looking for something specific but more trying to get some sense of the feel or atmosphere that exists.

Julie often heads out and about in the region, not looking for something specific to paint, but experiencing the change in the landscape as the seasons change.

Julie also credits the vibrant artistic scene within Dumfries & Galloway with helping her develop as a landscape painter. With local initiatives such as the annual Spring Fling open studio event, where artists and makers open their studio to members of the public over a bank holiday weekend, to the dedicated arts centre at Gracefield, there are many ways for a professional artist to develop their style and reputation.

There are also areas with great artistic history. Kirkcudbright has for many years been associated with some of the finest artists Scotland has produced over the past century. Julie is hoping to put Langholm on the map!

As well as having her work shown regularly in London, Julie has also had a record breaking show at the biscuit factory in Newcastle and is soon to be showing work in Paris. Her work is talked about as being recognisably Scottish, something Julie is very proud of.