Julie ROSEWARNE FOSTER

Julie Rosewarne Foster lives in Gippsland, where she has been an important part of the local arts scene both as an artist and through her roles in arts education, including in her position as Education Officer at Latrobe Regional Gallery from 2010 – 2014.

Rosewarne Foster moved to Gippsland in 1985 to take up a position at the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education teaching art education for training primary and secondary school teachers. Like many artists who lived or travelled to the region, she was drawn to the forests, cleared paddocks, rich soils and good rainfall. View to the South is part of a series of pastel drawings that reflect on these landscapes as the artist travelled from place to place. She often made these drawings en plein air, and this work would have been a quick drawing done on-site from her period in Traralgon South.

As a medium, pastel has allowed Rosewarne Foster to capture an impression of the view with both soft and coarse textures across the scene. In the foreground, the pastures are brought into focus in broad green strokes cross-hatched with yellow and orange, while markers of distance further out on the horizon become more blurred. The dusty, chalky quality of pastel illustrates the view with a residue or haze in the air, making visible fresh winds, describing not only what the artist saw but their sense of the place.

Rosewarne Foster has an extensive background in arts education, teaching in Tertiary courses at Churchill and Clayton campuses of Monash University. She has a Master of Arts (Australian Art) and a PhD in Fine Arts, Classics and Archaeology.