julie payne ― architectural art

Handmark’s Julie Payne drew on her former high-flying career, to provide an unforgettable artistic experience for a group of architects she escorted on an ‘Art Walk’ to the stunning Bay of Fires.

Julie has forged a career as one of Tasmania’s favourite visual artists. But what few realise is that before this incarnation, Julie was a highly successful architect who ran a leading practice with her partner, Robert Morris-Nunn.

Not surprisingly, Julie was in her element as she led a group of eight ‘incredible women’ –  most of them top Brisbane architects – on a Bay of Fires ‘Art Walk’. “They were my dream group,” she tells us, “smart, clever, fun and they could do all the drawings!”

The four-day ‘Art Walk’, the brainchild of Handmark Gallery and the Tasmania Walking Company, began at Eddystone Point. After sketching the wild beauty of this remote lighthouse, the group trekked seven kilometres down the beach to the Bay of Fires and the luxury of the Lodge: “Being from Queensland what really blew them away was this incredible sense of isolation and the spectacular landscape,” Julie says.

Armed with a ‘Concertina Journal’, watercolors and pencils, Julie says the group would spend the day “experimenting with drawing, watercolors and rubbings,” and as the sun set would replace this with fantastic wine, food and conversation around a roaring fire: “They were extraordinary women and I feel so honoured to have met them.”