About the Artist

The John Wesley Powell River History Museum exhibited a solo show of Buckwalter’s work from June 18 - December 14, 2022.

Julia Buckwalter (b. 1984)

Artist Julia Buckwalter is a resident of Moab, Utah, and was awarded the distinction of 2021 Artist in the Parks by the Canyonlands Natural History Association for the Southeast Utah group. This region encompasses Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Natural Bridges National Monument and Hovenweep National Monument.

Born in Cairo, Egypt, she then spent childhood in Utah, traveling often throughout the Southwest in awe of yet another desert’s sweeping landscapes and majestic skies.   After living on both coasts and acquiring a degree in the Visual Arts for Painting at Pennsylvania State University, she returned to the West and Moab to establish her craft.

Working primarily with oil on canvas in the studio, Buckwalter’s painterly style draws from years of emotion and memory, her large canvases carrying the sensation of being “windows” in time.  Whether watching storms roll in across the horizon on road trips or spending extended time throughout her life at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch, the desert has been a source of endless artistic inspiration.  Ever-changing shapes of sky, rich variations of hues found in “red” rock, winding rivers, mountains, and the emotionality of the landscape all find their way into her studio. 

Additional painterly influences include European colorists Gauguin and Matisse, and American Western artists Maynard Dixon and Edgar Payne.