For Julie Poulsen, everyday narratives provide the starting point and word play drives the momentum. Sequential to producing artwork, Poulsen writes to validate her ideas. This literary honing feeds, simplifies and substantiates, paving the way for rigorous experimentation. Born and educated in Brisbane, Poulsen spent a year with her family in Cooktown in 1977 before moving to Toowoomba to embark
on a Diploma of Creative Arts. At the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education, an era of non-directed study formulated a mindset of investigation characterising her future art practice. Painting remained the focus until 2002 when the nature of Poulsen’s practice shifted. Works became light and open, a combination of painting, drawing, printmaking and stitched assemblage. In 2005, Décor Sermon, a playful reinvention of the puffed up fads and frippery of the perfect interior décor clarified this new direction in an exhibition of 50 continuous metres of artwork. In 2006 Menu Board followed with trademark playfulness and wit, the text, language and aesthetics of chalkboard café menus and roadside signs. More recently shown in Sydney, House and Land package, House Portraits and The Princess gets to hold the cats. Ongoing landscape inspired works, the current body Glimpse to be shown at Cairns Regional Gallery June, 2012.
