Julia Ogden West Yorkshire, United Kingdom

• 
• 
• 

  Back to profiles Invite to apply

I am a painter and printmaker living and working in the creative town of Hebden Bridge. I have been a practising artist for twenty two years. As well as being a professional artist I am also a qualified teacher and facilitate workshops and children's art clubs.

I grew up in Brighouse,West Yorkshire. I carried a passion for art with me from as long as I can remember and held it close through school. It wasn't encouraged there but it really was at home.

Always a fan of a good story I studied illustration at Edinburgh College of Art. I fell in love with printing there and made most of my illustrations by hand pulling ink through silk screens in a room of ink splatters and history. Because I had made little books this way my tutors suggested an MA course in Brighton. It was titled Sequential Illustration. It seemed the right fit because I felt most happy making multiples of drawings and prints. I liked how they spoke to each other.

After my Masters my friend and I did a pop up shop. I made a few paintings for that, which were spotted by a gallery owner and before I knew it I was a painter! I painted seascapes of Brighton and also florals; colour and negative space were becoming really important to me.

I eventually returned to Yorkshire. I had missed the hills, the green, the tupperware skies. I now paint soft, dream like landscapes of places close to my heart from my studio in Hebden Bridge. I also returned to screen printing! I have been doing that as well as painting for twenty years now. It gives me a chance to make products that are affordable and bring joy to the everyday in hand printed cushions, cards, notebooks and bags.

Over the last few years I have been lucky enough to be featured on TV; the BBC's Home is Where the Art Is and my painting on Alan Carr's Interior Design Masters. I have also had a print in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2019 which was such a thrill.

For the future I will just keep painting and drawing: capturing skies and the shapes of nature. Seeing how this collection of ideas speak to each other.