Julie Sutherland is a recently emerging artist, who lives in Morris County, New Jersey with her husband and their three young sons.

Ignoring all encouragement and accolades, however passionate, from her teachers and family throughout her upbringing and education, Julie chose to pursue another profession rather than art. She may not have considered art a serious profession, but as art was her strongest passion since early childhood, Julie consistently sought out Studio Art and Art History classes as electives in both her secondary and undergraduate studies.

It was not until her children reached school age that she discovered art and creative talents to be a valuable asset. Creating scenery for class plays, school auction items and decorations for fundraising events brought her to her epiphany: “Do what you enjoy most.” Acquiescing to the fact that “mother is always right”, she decided to do what comes naturally and more importantly, what she truly enjoyed. She has been studying general painting under Premier Portrait Artist, Jonathan Linton for the past two years. Julie has only been painting since 2003, but her fourth painting, “Olympic Gold”, was a “Top 200” winner in the National Park Academy of the Arts annual Arts for the Parks 2003 competition in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, winning an “Award of Excellence”. This provided her with the impetus to launch her career as an artist—much to the satisfaction of her friends and family.

Julie’s sense of realism is derived primarily from her childhood in Holland. She works in oil and paints a variety of subject matters — most of which are scenes from experiences with her husband and children. She finds each piece to be a journey… with its own set of challenges to work out.