Julie Cassels

Julie Cassels had an initial career as a Systems Analyst, working in both England and New Zealand. After a career break, to raise a family, she studied Visual Arts (Salford University), graduating in 2004, then an M.A. in Textiles/Fashion (Manchester Metropolitan University) in 2005. Cassels is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work is initiated by historical research and highlights the aesthetics of textiles and clothing throughout art history. The photographic image is fundamental to the different facets of her practice, using it to explore the relationship between a still image, the photographic sequence and the moving image. The tension she finds between the photograph and its eventual form has led her to return photographs back to three-dimensions, with work that is an amalgamation of sculpture, photography and textile. As a perpetual analyst she reflects on the individuality of seeing and visual perception, illuminating them with work that encompasses video installation, photographic collage, digital reconstructions and low relief canvasses. In 2019 she was a runner up in the Greater Manchester Art Prize and received an Arts Council England DYCP grant in 2021 to pursue the project, ‘We View Things Differently Now’. The project looked at extant photographic equipment and early processes to better understand how our action of viewing has changed. Cassels work has been exhibited widely in the UK, Europe and New Zealand and is held in private collections and museums. Her work has been featured in the online magazine, The Double Negative, in the book Reframing Photography Theory and Practice By Rebekah Modrak, Bill Anthes and in the Shutter Hub Editions Publication, ‘Every Day Delight’. Julie Cassels is a member of ‘Shutterhub’ and the art collective ‘A Small Space’.