Julie Martini is a visual artist working in drawing, painting, sculpture and installation. Her work explores the interplay of materials: the automatic and the handmade.
Using paper marbling techniques dating back to the 12th century, Julie produces paintings on paper. Each painting begins with drops of acrylic paint on a liquid bath. The paint is induced to spread, move, and fragment by successive layers of paint and surfactants. The “floating painting” is then transferred to paper, and the final pieces are shaped with layers of pigment blown through a mouth atomizer and paint applied by hand. The paintings resemble celestial forms and cellular growth, composed of particles and fractal patterns, that split, move and regenerate.
Julie’s sculptures combine hand-built clay forms with digital modeling/fabrication. They are versions of the human body, imagined through the analogues of AI and human consciousness.
Her work includes references to NASA images, microscope photography, and humanist writing.
Her studio is in Jamaica Plain, MA.