Julia Sutliff creates oil paintings of nature near her home north of Baltimore, Maryland. She prefers to paint outside, “en plein air,” and in one session. This mode of working, she feels, gives her the courage and energy to take risks in her painting, and it enables her to capture color, composition, and depth perception as she experiences them. Also, the thrill of being in nature lifts her spirits, and since her paintings tend to mirror her mood, it helps to go where her mood is best. The natural world, she says (somewhat ruefully, for interior work would be more comfortable in winter), contains the only imagery that moves her to paint.
She is appreciated by collectors and fellow artists for her sense of color and her “flair for simplifying form and color in order to capture the essence of a scene.”
One notes that, “the energy in her brushstrokes takes me beyond Impressionism. It’s like Nature itself. Alive. So full of movement, always changing and evolving.”
Sutliff has been noticed for having “an eye for the underlying beauty of landscapes that most of us would overlook” and painting “places that are unspectacular, often in areas where development encroaches on nature.”
Gold Trees, 36″x28″, oil on board
Long Shadows, 16″x12″, oil on board
When viewing one of her paintings, says a collector, “I feel I’m reaching into the heart of that scene and feeling its pulse, its heartbeat.”
Julia Sutliff received degrees in literature and teaching from Brown, the University of Maryland, and the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. She has taken classes in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Sutliff has shown her work often in Maryland and nearby states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and North Carolina.
To see more of Julia Sutliff’s work visit JuliaSutliff.com.
Rainy Path, oil on board
Carnival Hillside, oil on board