Giulia McGauran - Class Of 2010
HER JOURNEY TO BECOMING A CREATIVE DIRECTOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER
Loreto Toorak Alumna, Giulia Giannini McGauran (2010), returned to School to share her career journey and offer some profound advice to our students during the Year 10 Careers Explorer Program.
Giulia shared her journey to find her passion and the direction she wanted to take in life and expressed her gratitude for our Loreto Toorak teachers, particularly her Art, Orchestra and Theatre Studies teachers, for their support and encouragement.
Giulia loved her Art and Theatre Studies classes; for her, they were always a safe haven from the confusion she felt in Maths and Science classes. Giulia loved being in Jane Stuart's orchestra after school. Whilst Giulia proclaimed that she was terrible at playing the oboe, Ms Stuart really inspired her to not just play the music, but love it and that was so incredibly special. Giulia’s time in Art and Theatre Studies gave her the confidence to try new things and be hands-on with creating. From exploring different artistic styles to creating sets, costumes, doing makeup and lighting/performance, it was such a creative, inspiring space to be in.
After graduating from Loreto Toorak, Giulia received a Bachelor’s Degree in Drawing and Print Making from the Victorian College of The Arts (VCA), University of Melbourne. However, after suffering from a hand injury halfway through her course, she made the transition to photography. She continued pursuing this for the remainder of her degree. Upon graduating from VCA, Giulia headed to Europe and exhibited her work in both solo and group exhibitions in Rome, Tuscany and Miami. During this time, she found that creating solo art and exhibiting was a more solitary career which did not suit her love of interacting with people. It was then while she began to attend her friends’ gigs that she developed a passion for taking photos of artists at live events. This is when she met and began collaborating with artists.
As Giulia began creating music press shots, she discovered her love for the combination of mixing the creative process from Theatre Studies and her course at VCA with live music and artists. Her first collaboration where she truly discovered combining these processes was with Melbourne musicians Alex Lahey and Eilish Gilligan. As she continued to collaborate with more artists, she began to realise that it was becoming her main job and to her surprise, her dream career.
Her workload continued to grow. Giulia went from working with artists directly, to managers and major labels. She discovered each stage had a different method and scale to explore. She also began working with artists and their brands, which inspired her to delve deeper into the process of Brand Development, and she completed a thesis in Developing Brand Personality for Emerging Australian Indie Musicians in a Masters’ Degree in Advertising at RMIT.
She describes her early career as being unbelievably busy, with many late nights and no weekends, but inspiring and enriching. Her hard work has paid off as Giulia has been able to build a vibrant creative community around herself which has led her to create music videos and work on brand/artist collaborations. What she loves the most however, is the ability to build a world for the artists and help bring their visions and music to life.
Giulia’s work can be seen on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, billboards in Time Square, installations at the headquarters of Facebook in New York and Instagram in Silicon Valley, and across music media worldwide. Some of her greatest artists collaborations include, but are not limited to, Tones and I, Tash Sultana, The Rubens, SABA, Example, and Meg Mac.
Giulia has always wanted to do a photoshoot with Tina Turner, Mr. Bean or Jimmy Barnes - hopefully this dream comes true!
She has recently been working with brands such as New Balance, Swatch, Spotify and Crocs and has signed to the Australian and US-based digital art agency, Jacky Winter.
Her career is constantly evolving. What started off as taking photographs for a friend, turned into design and branding, which led to building installations, dipping her toes into music, and learning 3D and digital art. The biggest challenge, yet also a blessing, of her career as a creative director and photographer is “There is no clear pathway of where to go in this career, but it also means that there are no limits. Whilst it can be scary not knowing where you’re going, the opportunities feel endless and always exciting.”
Giulia’s best advice to any Loreto Toorak student is to “follow what gives you confidence (because that’s where you shine) and what inspires you (because that’s what matters)”. Giulia also emphasised how important it is for women to be empowered through educating themselves on business operations, and to know there are many opportunities for creatives.
See more of Giulia’s work at link below
http://giuliamcgauran.com/
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