Artist Julie Bernal, paint brush in hand stands in front of her new nature-themed collection of paintings.

Award-winning Farragut artist, ‘workaholic,’ seeks gallery perch

Thursday, August 20, 2009 | Staff Reports | farragutpress

Award-winning artist and former farragutpress employee Julie Bernal has been a graphic designer in some form since she learned how to color inside the lines.

She has known since childhood that she wanted “to be somebody.” As winner of the People’s Choice Award at the Arts & Culture Alliance’s Top 40 Exhibition for her painting “Canoes – Still Water,” and a graphic designer for one of Knoxville’s premier public and media relations firms, Moxley Carmichael, she certainly achieved that. She also was Skirt! Knoxville’s “5 Things on My Life List” profile for August.

“I’m a workaholic. I set goals for myself, I always have,” Bernal said. “I’ve always had the goal to have one of my paintings in a gallery. When I started doing graphic design, I kind of stopped painting. I painted a lot in college and three or four years went by, and I didn’t paint at all.

“Last year, I started thinking about it again, and I still had this goal that I hadn’t achieved yet and I needed to achieve it!” she said of creating her award-winning painting.

Even as a child, Bernal understood that there were more places for art than just on white paper and in coloring books. Her earliest memory of utilizing graphic design was from when she was age 6 and working on an art project for Valentine’s Day. Continue reading →