A deep fog descended, and for four hours they puttered around in the eerie abyss.
They couldnt see much past their own boat, and for a brief period they were genuinely lost.
Julia Felsenthal,Suffer a Sea-Change (Into Something Rich and Strange),2024.
The artist and writer Julia Felsenthal, pictured in her home in Orleans, Massachusetts.
There was an undeniable parallel between the atmospheric murk and her own uncertainty about the future.
The paintings, all watercolors, take turns at serenity and dread.
Some are dappled with piercing blues and greensdreamy swirls that make you want to jump right in.
Julia Felsenthal,Suffer a Sea-Change (Into Something Rich and Strange),2024.
Others, shrouded in grays and yellows, cast an ominous pall.
The water churns and stabilizes, as it tends to do throughout a day.
Julia Felsenthal,The Acheron,2023.
Julia Felsenthal,The Acheron,2023.
Painting was more of a hobby, one shed had since childhood.
Then the pandemic happened.
She and her husband left the city for Cape Cod, and her freelance writing assignments dried up.
Julia Felsenthal,No Man’s Land (Ithaca),2024.
Here was her opportunity to take art from side gig to center stagebut what to paint?
She was no longer surrounded by other people, who had up to that point been her main subject.
Julia Felsenthal,No Mans Land (Ithaca),2024.
Julia Felsenthal,Lashed to the Mast,2024.
Which impulses were the right impulses?
How would I ever know how to know?
she writes in her artists statement.
The stakes felt heightened given a past health scare and her mid-career pivot from writer to painter.
Out in the mist, unmoored but immersed, an idea started to percolate.
Julia Felsenthal,Lashed to the Mast,2024.
Theres something deeply human about these paintings.
They are quiet but willful, with a vantage point just above the waters surface.
Atop extra-thick paper Felsenthal layers the paint into precise lurches, not unlikeVija Celminss graphite oceans.
Shell even scrape away paper using an X-Acto knife.
Imwrestlingwith these, she says.
Im really interested in this credit we give to photography as truly documenting anything.
Low Visibilityis on view at JDJ gallery in New York City until February 1, 2025.
