Julie Shiels

Julie Shiels has been a practicing visual artist and teacher since 1985. Her research based photomedia and sculptural projects respond to social and political issues such as climate, inequality, consumption and gentrification.

For more that 30 years Shiels collaborated with culturally diverse communities, museums and arts organisations on large scale art projects concerned with advocacy and social change. These experiences, and the process-based methods Shiels developed continue to inform her art making today. In 2004 she was awarded a two year fellowship from Creative Australia that acknowledged her contributions to the practice of socially engaged art.

She has undertaken many temporary and permanent public art commissions and taught in the post graduate Art in Public Space program at RMIT from 2006 – 2019.

Julie regularly exhibits in public galleries and artist-run spaces Her work has been acquired by public collections including: Australian National Gallery, Australia Embassy – Vietnam, Polish Poster Biennale, State Library of New South Wales, State Library of Victoria, National Library of Australia, Gallery of New South Wales, City of Port Phillip, Banyule City Council, Ballarat Regional Gallery, Australian War Memorial, Baillieu Library, Rare Book Collection, Melbourne University, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne.

Since 2014, her photomedia projects and artist books have been published by M.33.

Shiels completed her PhD at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2015 and was the recipient of the prestigious Stella Mary Langford Post Graduate Scholarship from Melbourne University. Prior to that she was awarded a Masters of Art from RMIT University in 2006.

Shiels has been a regular art reviewer for the Conversation since 2014.