National colours: This portrait by former Kyabramite Juliette Kent celebrates the success of the Matildas at the 2023 World Cup. It is of a nine-year-old neighbour and was painted using watercolours and Derwent pencils. Photo: Juliette Kent
Juliette Kent was good at two things when she was a teenager living in Kyabram.
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One would allow her to stay in her home town and the other would require relocating to the city and following her dream.
Fruit picking and art were her two greatest skills, the first readily available on her grandfather’s property and the latter developed during her Kyabram education, but requiring a far greater commitment.
She chose the latter and 40 years later she is a published illustrator whose most recent work has celebrated the momentous achievements of the Australian women’s soccer team, the Matildas, at its home town world cup.
“A lot of mums commission me to do their portraits of their children. This portrait (pictured) is from a photograph of a neighbour’s nine-year-old son, Ethan. His mother is from Africa and he is a soccer fan,”Juli said.
She said the Matildas were the inspiration for the theme, and name, of the portrait.
“What they have done has been so uplifting. In a time when people struggle to afford food and rent, the positivity surrounding the Matildas has been uplifting,” she said.
The almost metre-high portrait amazed the recipient and was another example of the accomplished artist’s far-reaching skill set.
Juli said she was no under no illusions as a teenager — she could either continue working on the family orchard as a fruit picker, or follow her dream of being an artist.
Born and bred in Kyabram, she left for Melbourne for 40 years, leaving behind her artistic upbringing in the classrooms of Haslem Street and Dawes Road primary schools, along with Kyabram High School.
Juli grew up on Julia St and was an extended part of the Nardella family, spending most of her spare time with twin cousins Nino and Rick, or their sister Merry.
She is a regular visitor to Kyabram, despite her uncle Rick passing away in 1997 and her aunty Delia now living in Torquay.
Rick Nardella now lives in Shepparton and Nino has remained in Kyabram, working with the A2 Dairy Company.
Merry Nardella, who always wanted to be an actress and writer, achieved the latter goal and now resides in Sydney.
Colourful career: In the mid-1990s, this Juli Kent-illustrated Mondeo Publishing book titled Oh No! became internationally renowned.
Juli said the Nardella boys didn’t play soccer at all, which she considered a little strange as their dad was an Italian devotee of the sport.
“Uncle Rick did, however, love Carlton and the twins played for Kyabram,” she said.
Juli’s Melbourne graphic art studies led to her career as a professional book illustrator, working for Oxford University Press and several well-known publishing houses.
“I did a children’s book for Modeo (Publishing) which made it as far as New York and I worked for Longman Cheshire Books, who used to print atlases and science books,” she said.
“I did a lot of educational book illustration.”
Art wasn’t a part of the family dynamic. Her mother Claire was a dressmaker before she was married and her grandfather, World War I war veteran Arthur Smith, set the tone for the family when he set up a couple of orchards, the first on The Avenue and the second at Ky Valley.
Her mother died on August 21, 1983, and Juli returns to Kyabram every year to mark that anniversary by visiting her grave at Kyabram Cemetery.
The cemetery is an historic reference point for the artist as her grandfather was a stonemason and chiselled a lot of names on the headstones at the cemetery, working for a time with renowned funeral director Clive Coventry.
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