Julee Ryle

Julee Hightower Ryle feels an urgency to paint. She paints quick still lifes of random items strewn about her home: kids toys, cut hair, lost teeth, trash, food, tools, packaging, plants, old photos… and also more involved portraits. Julee loves painting portraits of people and the challenge of showing a glimpse of the subject’s personality and inner strength. These 2 modes of painting work well together. The quick still lifes and the slow portraits inform each other. Both explore daily life seen through the lens of a mother.

Julee is interested in the essence of self- the personal, sometimes messy sense of self that is both innate and developed in childhood, continuing throughout adulthood.

Julee was born and raised in rural Washington then moved to New York to pursue an art career. She received a BFA in painting and sculpture from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY (2002).

Julee worked in NYC for many years at various loud and messy fine arts jobs such as ceramics department tech, fabricator, moldmaker, sculptor, film production design, and artist assistant/ shop hand. Becoming a mother- with choas, raw energy, exhaustion and love- inspired Julee to return to her own art practice. Julee lives in Walla Walla, WA with her husband and 5 children.

Recently Julee was in “Painting at Night”, a group show at Collar Works in Troy, NY. She has been in several group shows and 2 solo shows in Walla Walla, including her “100 not-so-daily paintings” at Whitman College.