Julie Mai
Julie Mai is a Canadian artist now based in Mallorca, Spain. After a career in Interior design she became a visual artist. Her evolution as a fine artist has seen her move from painting with oils to her current abstract work, using wax in a process that is known as encaustic. She has exhibited widely across the US and Canada.
Artist Q&A
What drew you to encaustic as your preferred medium for expressing your ideas?
Encaustic completely supports my way of working for many reasons. The main reason is the wax doesn’t dry; it cools. Therefore one can manipulate it endlessly, and, with care, it does not go “muddy”. The whole process is more immediate both in execution and in result, meaning any manipulation doesn’t have to wait. Also the light moves through the wax differently than other mediums, because there are varying thicknesses and levels of transparency, created both by how pigmented the wax is and how many layers I apply. The wax also holds the pigment better than most mediums. Much in the way silk and wool hold the dye better than hemp. Pigments react to the body they are suspended in. I find these nuances not easily captured in a photograph, my paintings always look better in real life. The medium is also hard to control, something I desire after years of representational work in oils. Leaving room for “me” to get out of the way. Like a “runners high” it becomes very meditative, building layer upon layer. One is “doing” the work, but something else takes over. It becomes an interactive dance between the head and the heart.
What do you hope your viewers feel or experience when they engage with your work in person?
On the one hand (the head) the viewer can see it ticks the “design element” boxes, such as composition, color, rhythm and so on. On the other hand (the heart) one can feel it. The ill defined, the intrinsic. Like a home cooked meal: the care, love, attention and immersion in the process. The giving up of ones self; is tasted in the food. In the same way, I hope the viewer can “taste” my work.