Julie Maren was an artist in residence at the Weir Farm National Historic Park in Wilton, CT, where she planned to explore breaking from the angularity and flatness of painting on canvas. “My paintings were getting tight and claustrophobic with lots of depth and detail. I wondered ‘why does it have to be flat and square? What would happen with no boundaries?’” 
We Bring Flowers, acorn tops, paint, brass, 50 x 50"
On long walks through the woods, she saw millions of tiny acorn caps and began wondering how to use them. She began filling them with paint and arranging them on moss and rocks, calling them “the wandering dots.” When her partner suggested that she hang them on the wall, she began experiments on how to mount them—settling on drilling holes in the back of the caps for brass stems that attach to nails in the wall. Her sister, who lived in Texas, sent her a box of enormous acorn caps from the bur oak, some of which were 4-inches in diameter. That inspired her to explore even more. “They opened the flood gates of experimentation,” she says. “I constantly have to be exploring and playing.”
Julie Maren at work in her studio.Today, her Biophilia series features wall compositions of large and small acorn caps filled with paint, mica, crystals and whatever materials she is inspired to include. Her recent work will be shown in the exhibition, Spacious, at Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas, August 5 through September 4.
Rainbow Beam, acorn tops, paint, glass, brass, 79 x 26 x10"She says, “The combination of the natural, familiar acorn tops filled with synthetic materials feels simultaneously familiar yet mysterious, and reminds of an engineered symbiosis or connectedness of nature and the artificial. I like using fluorescent and intense colors because it feels like I am reanimating the ‘dead’ shells that nature has discarded, into new seductive organisms which appear to glow from within.”
Detail of Spiraling Into the Eclipse, acorn tops, rubber, acrylic, brass, 30 x 30 x 9"Armed with boxes of 300 to 500 caps of different sizes and colors, she begins to lay out a composition on paper she has attached to the wall. “I just go in,” she explains. “I don’t sketch. I use what I’m feeling drawn to and am constantly editing.” The paper becomes a map for reinstalling the piece in the gallery or a collector’s home.
“I find truth in nature,” she says. “Nature is honest. It is an endless source of inspiration. That’s what I’ve always believed…I use the symbol of the acorn as a reminder of our interconnectedness with nature and to our larger community and world.” —
Wally Workman Gallery
1202 W. Sixth Street • Austin, TX 78703 • (512) 472-7428
www.wallyworkmangallery.com
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