About Julia

North Carolina artist Julia Chandler Lawing synchronizes color and brushstroke to capture the essence of a moment and evoke emotion. Her oil paintings have been called extravagantly beautiful, spiritual and inspiring.

Born in Atlanta, Julia moved to St. Simons Island, Georgia, at age 12. The experience of growing up in the Golden Isles instilled a deep appreciation for nature, light, and the wetland landscape.

Julia earned a BA in Journalism/Advertising at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (’90), with a minor in drawing and art history. While employed at Savannah College of Art and Design, and later the Charlotte Observer, she continued her creative exploration through night classes in various mediums including stained glass, woodworking, ceramics and pastels. While her four daughters were small, she taught elementary art classes and docented at the Cabarrus County Arts Council. Soon afterwards, Julia began oil painting and knew she had found her calling.

Julia’s work is featured in private collections across the US and Canada, and corporate collections including multiple Towne Bank branches and Georgia State University’s College of Law. Her paintings have appeared as billboards, window clings, and sheet metal.

When not traveling or painting on location, Julia creates in her studio at ClearWater Arts Center in Concord's Gibson Village. Visitors welcome.

Artist Statement

“I mine the earth for a few metaphors by which I can see Heaven” — Andy Squyers

My art is about the soul’s longing for our true eternal home, and the glimpses we catch of it here and now.

I have always drawn, but began oil painting at age 45 and was immediately attracted to its viscosity and the challenge of laying it down in an impressionistic manner using beautiful colors. My subjects come from my own memories of time well spent with family and traveling to both new and familiar places. Favorite muses include my four daughters and our times at rest and at play.

My love for the wetland landscape derives from growing up on a small barrier island in coastal Georgia, Saint Simons Island, at eye level with the constant tidal changes of the intercoastal creeks and marshes. They, alongside the centuries-old live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, are a subtle reminder that we are connected to forces greater than ourselves; that beyond our hurried everyday lives we can hear a faint call, pulling us to a vastly richer life of serenity and joy. Beauty gently awakens our hearts to the desire deep within, to know and to be known.

Lately, I have been digging through family photos for new subjects. Intimate, happy occasions such as beach campfires, lighthouse hikes, ocean play, rocky shores, lobster boils, sailboats and sunsets are making appearances in my sketchbook and on my easel.

“These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but…they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” —C.S. Lewis, The Weight Of Glory