Julia Groves
An ‘ethnobotanical artist’ Julia is passionate about the relationships between plants and people. Her work embodies many layered considerations and narratives including environmental, cultural, symbolic and spiritual.
Inspired by the historical and contemporary traditions of Botanical Art Julia employs both traditional and non-traditional techniques.
Julia has a multidisciplinary approach, engaging with plant material accessed from her local landscape, National Plant Collections, Physic Gardens and Community Projects.
With an Art Practice which is informed by over twenty years of experience as a horticulturalist, running a market garden and herb workshops in both Community Gardens and City Farms.
Explorations of poppies and roses have been part of her practice for a few years now. Taking into consideration their fragile, ephemeral beauty, medicinal qualities and their personal and historical symbolic potency.
Julia was awarded the Elizabeth Smail Memorial Award for her painting ‘a summer afternoon’ at the Florum exhibition in 2018 and the Kent Creative Award in 2016 for her Art Practice.
Other projects include a painting in the contemporary herbal published by the Royal College of Physicians based on the Pharmacopeia Londinensis, with an accompanying Exhibition in 2018, celebrating their 500th Anniversary.
Julia is a member of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium and the Iceni Botanical Artists Society.
