Julie Durkin Marty

Lives and works in Redding, CT, USA

Artist statement

Julie Durkin Marty Artist Statement I make abstract paintings that carry the scale of the ocean floor. They read like weather maps of invented places: electric blues dissolving into magenta, phosphorescent cyan burning against violet, a recurring arc moving through the picture plane like a breaking wave. The color comes from the visual language of sonar maps, the seafloor, and the creatures who live there, translated inward, toward the body and the experience of living inside a changing climate. The paintings are built from poured pigment and seawater pulled across canvas in long sweeps, then sanded back through the layers. Sanding erodes as extreme weather does, opening windows into the painting's past. Ground beach glass and sand, gathered from the coastlines the work is about, catch light against the soft matte surface. The sea is not only the subject but the material. The titles borrow from oceanography and astrophysics (Thermohaline Drift, Bathymetric Field), though not all are that serious: Bubblegum Ocean, Marshmallow Sea. Humor born from grief. Wonder is the point of entry; the work extends Color Field painting inward, into the specific experience of the climate crisis.

Artwork