JULIE MAI

I’m a self-taught painter whose abstract work explores the tension between dynamic energy and calm. For the first 15 years of my practice, I focused on representational painting—learning to observe, to see with attention, and to depict the world as I saw it. Over time, my focus shifted inward. After more than two decades of painting, my practice is now rooted in quiet absorption and in a mindful balancing of tension and calm.

When I first began working abstractly, I believed I was painting calm—and in many ways, I was. But over time, as I looked more closely at the work, I began to recognize something else beneath that calm: solitude. Sometimes chosen, sometimes imposed, but always revealing. That thread runs quietly through my paintings.

My work often reflects solitude—not as absence, but as presence—and invites a sense of stillness grounded in attention. At its core is a search for a place to rest within the unknown.