Show remembers Arundel artist following her death this January

Julia was based in Arundel but was an active member of the Community Programme at Pallant House Gallery. Julia passed away on January 30 2025, aged 68, from cancer, but was aware of the exhibition. She was very involved in its planning and very much wanted it to be a joyful celebration. The exhibition has been curated by Vivienne Roberts and Jennifer Gilbert and runs from March 18-30, featuring drawings, scrolls, sketchbooks and textile works.

Jennifer said: “The works were selected together to showcase older and newer works like a retrospective exhibition, alongside those that were very important to her.

“Julia had been creating since 2004 and was a psychic artist using the medium of drawing to commune with the natural and spirit worlds. She rarely planned her drawings over choosing the paper and colours she used for her mark making. Sometimes there was a focus, something she wanted to meditate upon; but after that her pen was a dowsing rod, discovering what the page was willing to share. As Julia found herself in that liminal space between life and death, she wanted to create more than anything else, continuing right until the end.

“She was an active member of the Community Programme at Pallant House Gallery for 11 years, a brilliant Community Programme Ambassador and member of the Gallery's Public Programmes Advisory Group. We look forward to showing you Julia's personal world and everything that she wanted to share. Several works will be available for sale during the exhibition.”

Julia said in 2021: “Drawing evolves out of reducing the impact of our senses upon our body, allowing ourselves to journey inside and see what is in our mind’s eye, what is behind our eyelids, the stories that unravel as we meditate. To understand it, breathe deeply, relax, and explore what only you can experience in this space. Drawing is about seeing beyond what we see with our conscious mind.”

Vivienne added: “To enter the world of Julia Oak’s art is to enter through a portal into an enchanted wood where there is the delight of encountering creatures and elemental beings amongst the entwined branches. Julia adopts techniques such as dowsing and meditation to aid her artistic process and there is a great attention to detail with her choice of materials. Beautiful papers and experimentation with different pens all form part of her work.

“One of her largest works is a drawing ten metres in length and forms part of the permanent collection of The Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. On the other end of the scale, Julia produces kaleidoscopic sketchbooks filled with miniscule coloured circles, a cornucopia of coloured geometry. Her drawings are often created in series such as the black and white lockdown drawings which she completed in 30 minutes everyday, or her Into the Portal series which conveys Julia’s description of her creativity that her drawings are in fact conversations, flowing freely and intuitively between Julia, the trees and the spiritual beings she meets.”

Jennifer Gilbert is an independent gallerist, curator and producer working alongside and supporting disabled, neurodivergent and self-taught artists from around the world. She runs the Jennifer Lauren Gallery in Manchester. Vivienne Roberts is a London-based art historian and curator specialising in the history of mediumistic art, with a focus on its women practitioners. She is a member of the Visionary Women Research Group and the British Art Network.