Julie Durkin Marty makes large abstract paintings on the scale of the ocean floor, built from paint she makes with seawater gathered from the shoreline. At close range the surface is thousands of small craters she excavates by sanding back through the layers until an older color surfaces; from a distance they resolve into a single glowing field that reads as if lit from behind. What surfaces as she works is each painting's own history, coordinate grids and the alert colors of bleaching maps, so the work turns climate data into feeling. She makes them as a mother who loves the sea, holding its damage and the belief that it is not too late.

Durkin Marty lives and works in Connecticut. She received her BFA from Parsons School of Design and her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Her work has been exhibited nationally in solo and group exhibitions at venues including Mana Contemporary, 63 Audubon at Yale University, DADA POST, Holland Tunnel, G-Town Arts, GBG Gallery, Mulry Fine Art, and CoLAB Arts, and has been featured in the Hartford Arts Pages, Artist Magazine, the New York Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Palm Beach Daily News. She is a two-time resident of the Pollinator Platform residency.