SEA BELOW SKY

Many paintings have been done of both the sea and sky, but Julie-anne Armstrong-Roper's are something special

Julie-anne is the latest artist to have an exhibition at the Leongatha Art Gallery with her series of paintings entitled "Sea Below Sky". Often artists recreate stunning sunsets or beautiful scenes of rolling waves purely for their aesthetic value

But Julie-anne delves deeper, as her paintings influence and reflect our various emotions and moods.

"To me the weather is one of the most powerful elemental forces in our lives and can deeply affect the way we think and feel not only on a conscious level but also subconsciously." says Julie-anne.

"There is nothing like a blue sky to lift our spirits, whereas a grey and rainy one can have the opposite effect."

She says that in this series of works she has used the sky and all its moods not only to communicate her own emotions, " but to invoke an emotional response from the audience."

Julie-anne's paintings are not true depictions taken from nature, but abstractions.

"They draw their inspiration from the philosophies of the great American abstract expressionists, as an internal depiction straight from the artist to the onlooker." Julie-anne says of her works.