About
Julie Ann Haines is a Dublin based artist and printmaker. Born in Belfast she studied Fine Art Painting at Manchester and Norwich Schools of Art and taught art in secondary schools and museums for several years alongside continuing her own work.
Her practice focuses on moments of stillness in the overlooked corners of urban spaces, close to where she lives. She is motivated by light and drawn to unremarkable places on the edge of the busy thoroughfare of life,- sometimes outdated, in need of refurbishment or about to be knocked down. She is aware of an impermanence around these structures, the ebb and flow of life that has passed through them, the cycle of things ending and things beginning. She passes her subjects daily, in early morning or evening when all that is left are the traces of those who have passed through. Their flaking paintwork and broken edges hint at a human history yet their empty and unpeopled status seems to accentuate the silence that envelops them. Always the presence of strong sun and still long shadows deepens their beauty. Her part in this cycle is just another observer. Society is quick to disregard and replace these forgotten structures but despite all there is an optimism in their air,- a celebration of all that has been good in their life,- a strong rootedness that never plays victim to their transient state. These urbanscape compositions look at the everyday, familiar and mass produced around us. They ask questions about the structures we build and collect and the traces we leave behind. For her they are moments of calm in an otherwise hectic world and represent all that is valuable in the ordinary and overlooked .
Julie Ann originally trained in Fine Art painting and first developed a serious interest in printmaking when she moved to Dublin and started making multi plate colour etchings at the Graphic Studio Dublin. She became a full time member of that studio and etchings and monotypes currently comprise a large part of her body of work. She spitbites her copper etchings entirely, painting acid onto copper plates to create deep tones and rich darks, checking the aquatinted surfaces diligently to control the outcome. It is a focused and intensive method and has endured for centuries. There is a rich layering of colour in each print. The focused process and layering of colour in both etchings and monotypes seems to echo something of the patina of time that attracted her to these forgotten structures in the first place.
Julie Ann's work is in the collections of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Dept. of Finnance, Northern Ireland, National Gallery of Ireland, National Library of Ireland, Office of Public Works, the British Library, Fingal and Meath County Councils and the University of Limerick
