about | juliaheiroth

VISUALIZED EMOTIONS

Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas or wood panel. Frames made from Yukon driftwood & scrap wood pieces.

In my work, I try to capture the ambivalence and ‘layeredness’ of feeling and make it visible.

I explore what feelings & emotions can look like on flat, inviting space. What colours can they come in, what shapes can they take on? How many layers will they have, and how can a season, a song, a smell, or a conversation influence that emotional landscape?

Colors and brush strokes take the lead and I watch things unfold in front of me. Creating solidness of fleeting and passing moments; the ambivalence and ever-changing range of emotions & feelings held in space.

Since moving to the Yukon, I realize that this vast “land-scope” and its inhabitants create a very special feel, something that has to do with the dramatic change of seasons, smells, sounds and the intense change of light & darkness.

I work with a colour scheme that reminds of natural, earthy materials and their properties i.e.; rocks (solid, cool, grey) lichen (chatty, friendly, bright, greenish) fungi (abundant, intelligent, wet, soft, brownish) combined with colours of precious metals like gold or copper (heavy, solid, strong, healing).

Each painting is its own little world and when ‘birthed’, I realize I am just their medium to exist permanently in our perceived visual world.