About Julie Bevan
Hey there. I'm Julie and if you're here, you probably already know that my work is built from colour, texture, and feeling. But to understand the paintings, it helps to know a little about the person behind them.
The long way round
My love of art has been lifelong. As a teenager I dreamed of painting large canvases and seriously considered art school, but at the time it didn't feel like a 'real' career. So I did what I thought was the smart thing instead. I studied finance, entered the world of stockbroking, and spent years in a high-pressure, male-dominated industry where I constantly felt like I had to fight to prove myself. I have some truly hair-raising stories from those years, things that, thankfully, wouldn’t fly in most workplaces today. By the end I was exhausted and drained.
So I walked away. I sold my car, packed a backpack, and spent the next 18 months travelling, Hong Kong to San Francisco, across Russia and Africa, at least 11 countries in all. That journey changed everything. I met people who had almost nothing and still radiated happiness. It cracked open my understanding of what a life could look like outside of the mortgage, the ladder, the 9 to 5.
The creative detour
Before I left, I'd been quietly making things, leather bags, knitted pieces, just for fun. While travelling I started collecting beautiful beads and stones: natural turquoise, blue lapis, small treasures found along the way. I began making jewellery, just for myself. People started stopping me to ask about the pieces I was wearing.
Jewellery wasn't entirely unfamiliar, my parents had been in the trade, so I'd grown up around it. When I returned to Ireland, launching my own jewellery business felt like a natural next step. For the first few years I loved it. But over time I found myself designing for what would sell rather than what moved me. I lost the creative spark. Seventeen years later, just after Covid, I knew I couldn't do it anymore. I sold the business and finally gave myself permission to return to the thing I had set aside so long ago. Painting.
Coming back to it
I still remember finishing my first piece, I called it, simply, First, (interestingly it was also the first one I sold) and feeling a deep sense of peace and accomplishment. Something inside me clicked into place. It was like a part of me I hadn't heard from in a very long time had finally been given a voice.
Since becoming a mum in 2015 my perspective had shifted further still. I wanted to raise my daughter in a present, connected, conscious way. I never returned to a 9-5pm day. Travel had always been a source of deep inspiration, so every winter we would spend a couple of months somewhere new as a family. During that time I did a lot of quiet self-reflection, asking myself what kind of life I was actually building.
When I finally wrote it down, the answer was clear. Travel. Presence. Different cultures and experiences for my daughter. And painting. In 2021 I took the leap. Now I'm living the life I once only imagined, or thought I could have when I retired. Creating abstract canvases filled with energy and emotion from my studio, inspired by travel, nature, light, water, and the ongoing interior journey of just being a human being paying attention.
If I've learned anything along the way, it's this: it's never too late to follow the dream that's been quietly waiting for you.
The work itself
My paintings are built through layers, texture, colour, and material working together to create something that feels both physical and emotional. I rarely begin with a fixed outcome in mind. The work evolves through response and refinement, through addition and subtraction, until the painting finds its own balance.
The surface of each piece is built up over time using a combination of professional-grade acrylic paints, primarily Liquitex, Amsterdam, and LeFranc Bourgeois alongside watercolours, Sennelier, Vallejo and Jacquard inks for more fluid, spontaneous layers. These fluid mediums introduce transparency, movement, and a kind of unpredictability that becomes a counterpoint to the denser textured areas. Palette knives, brushwork, and mixed media all play a role in shaping the final surface.
All of my original paintings are created on hand-stretched canvas over wooden frames a traditional structure that provides archival stability, a firm surface for heavy texture, and the durability needed for layered, dimensional work.
Gold tones, subtle contrasts, and atmospheric layering often emerge naturally through the process, reflecting the influence of natural light, water, and memory. The materials I choose are not just technical decisions they are essential to the emotional quality of the final piece. High-pigment professional paints allow for depth and permanence. Fluid mediums bring movement and life. Together they create work that feels both grounded and atmospheric, with surfaces that reveal new details the longer they are lived with.
My aim, always, is to make something immersive. Something that earns its place on the wall not just because it looks beautiful, but because it continues to give something back every time you look at it.
To learn more about the specific materials, techniques and process behind my work, visit the Materials & processes page
Explore Original paintings and Limited edition prints
Featured on the Wild Simplicity Podcast with Anna Day.