I’ve been fascinated by art for as long as I can remember. I would spend hours in our backyard, drawing crayon frescos on the interiors of cardboard boxes. Art is its own environment; I think differently inside art than I do outside it. That is perhaps why I feel most imaginative when I’m somewhat literally immersed in paint. I begin a painting with a memory, an ocean creature, or fanciful notion-- but that  is generally just the first muse in a series of muses. I want to find out what I can  see and imagine  once I’ve reached the place I originally imagined  I am climbing to a specific mountain top because I know it will have a beautiful view. But I have to get there to see it and truly respond.

The way I work with physical paint is a bit like setting up domino collisions. I let the paint fall naturally within a world I’ve meticulously constructed. I carve into wet paint (a processes known as sgraffito) and drip paint or ink through the labyrinths I carve. I also apply paint directly from the tube with brushes or with found objects like seashells. The paint often dances a fine line between being the subject and the medium. If a paint drip can be made to move like a jellyfish tendril then is it a part of a jellyfish or an expression of paint’s own beauty? As an actor I spend my time pretending to be other people; as an artist I get to be myself. But I find the only way to be 100% genuine is with a lot of pretending.

- Julia D'Ambrosi