Julie C Baer

My mixed-media nature paintings reflect my close observation and sensory impressions of the natural world. I aim to capture its fluctuating patterns: shifting light, variegated colors, constant movement, changing forms, biodiversity. I seek out native plants through their seasonal cycles of budding, blooming, fruiting, seeding, dying, and dormancy. Working abstractly, yet botanically accurately, I surprise viewers with unusual views to induce them to look deeply, just as I have done. Many pieces depict the beauty and complex design inherent in the typically-unnoticed life growing on old tree bark, while others look for light in a changing sky fragmented by tree canopies. My compositions often present unconventional allover patterns without traditional focal points, reflecting how we discover nature. Many pieces, due to heavily collaged elements, are highly topographic, as though life forms grow from their surfaces. I am exquisitely aware that, though nature is our collective home, human activity has caused irreparable losses of habitat, resource, and species. By revealing and sharing the beauty of humble local biota, thus, I respond to ecologists’ call for native ecosystem rediscovery and restoration. Additionally, science shows correlations between time in nature and wellbeing; indeed, as someone suffering from lifelong PTSD and chronic pain, I can attest to this. My work, therefore, reminds viewers to go outdoors and look closely, and in this way, care for themselves and their habitats.