Julie Crews: I’ll Be Right With You

Julie Crews is an oil painter. She grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, but has called many other places home. A few include northern California, which taught her how to ease into her 20’s; Louisiana, which enriched her southern vision for ten years; and Huntsville, Alabama, where she now lives with her husband and five children. She operates an open studio and gallery in a 122-year-old cotton mill, repurposed as Lowe Mill Arts and Entertainment.

Julie paints what takes her out of the studio: the life it takes to nurture a family. When she is in the studio she escapes certain domestic tethers, but on the canvas before her remain the scenes of her life. Fires burn in the backyard. Cars wait at a red light. Children swim and leaves settle on the forest floor. Weather, traffic, landscapes encountered while running errands around town, and her interactions with the people closest to her influence her work, naturally. But recreating these scenes gives permanence to the emotional undercurrents of her life.

I’ll Be Right With You is an ongoing narrative of the pursuit of living a well-curated life, and even though curating her emotions is one of her most challenging charges, Julie Crews does not hold back. With works entitled I Can Do Hard Things and Wake Me Please When This is Over, she is hopeful that every soul viewing the exhibition I’ll Be Right With You will find work that resonates with them in a deep and meaningful way.