Julie Akerson Chicos is a mixed-media abstract painter, graphic designer, and writer who splits her time between Boston and Nantucket.
Julie works primarily in resin and pigments while incorporating acrylics, semi-precious gems, textiles, and naturally found objects.
The rich paintings pay homage to the artist’s love of the sea and the world that hums beneath. Her distinctive personal style emanates peace and healing while expressing that vibrant spirit of the sea.
Each piece is uniquely created with semi-precious gems, Reiki healing stones, energy crystals, and shells from the heart of the sea, hand placed in a bed of liquid resin mixed with pigments from the earth.
Abstract underwater scapes all begging to be touched are brought to life with contrasting harmonious colors and soothing compositions.
After receiving her degree and working in the legal field for years, she decided she needed to let the artist inside free, and returned to college to study Art and Graphic Design. It was then that her passion for painting was rekindled.
Julie has been drawing and painting from a young age and attributes her grandmother who was an artist; for her desire to create. She believes “Everyone is an artist. Everyone was born with the gift to create. You just have to let yourself tap into it without judgment and see where it takes you.”
At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process have a connection like no other. Art is healing, a form of restoration that repairs the soul and, much like each piece, takes something fragmented and makes it whole again.
Something about the ocean, or water itself, is seductive and draws us in. The sound of the waves lapping the shore or a river weaving and winding its way over the rocks vibrates to the deepest part of our souls, making us long for more. That connection remains with us no matter how far we travel.
My compositions are an escape into that underwater world through the lens of abstract art.
From the time I was a child, I was drawn to the water. Growing up, my family spent summers at a lake in Maine, and the memory of long days swimming, exploring, and being together is a feeling that I carry with me and now share with my own children, except now it is not at the lake but at the ocean. My work comes from that place, those memories, that feeling.
Each time I look at the ocean, it is as if I see it for the first time. It is omnipresent and constantly changing and expressing itself in a new light.
I aim to capture that connection and spark that recollection in the viewer.
I am an artist and a storyteller, so each piece is a visual and physical journey.
