Everything is Impermanent

By Christine Giraud

“People just assume that a painting should last for as long as possible. I'm interested in making paintings that appear to expire.” Marie Julou

Artist Marie Julou (pseudonym for Tina McCallan), a petite feminist bohemian with an eternally positive disposition, is working on an exciting new series called “Decaying Monochromes”.

The series is an offshoot of her previous collection, “The Pompeii Series” (2022), which explored her fascination with impermanence and the effects of time. “Decaying Monochromes” follows that same theme of entropy and impermanence, but centers on the color Majorelle Blue (a reference to International Klein Blue).

Julou is working on the series at the cavernous art studio, Sporting Club Russafa, in Valencia, Spain, which she shares with nine other talented artists. The large space, originally a boxing gym, still bustles with activity, only now with artists instead of athletes. A punching bag hangs in a corner, like an homage to the past.

As visitors milled about the studio gazing at the art, and other artists worked in their own spaces, Julou explained her ideas and vision for the series.

Pompeii Series

“Decaying Monochromes” was sparked by a trip Julou took to Pompeii, Italy in 2022. She was inspired by the ancient villas and remnants of frescoes that somehow still felt connected to contemporary life. “The people no longer exist, and obviously one day I will no longer exist, but I saw how a lot of things stay the same, how we're similar to the people who lived at that time.”

“The House of the Golden Bracelet” 2022, Modeling paste, pigments, glitter, burnt walnut shell on canvas 104 x 126 cm

“The Pompeii Series” is based on the idea of paintings in an ancient museum being buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and then exhumed 2000 years later. The canvases show the beauty that the passage of time creates. Julou makes the surfaces look stained and moldy, covered in remnants of dust and particles by using powder and crystalline pigments, burnt walnut shells, and glitter.

Each canvas in the series has a different color theme that relates to the frescos and villas discovered by archaeologists and the titles they gave them. Julou finds poetry in this linking of the past with the present. Examples of the titles include “The House of the Nereid on Horseback”, “The House of the Golden Bracelet”, “Villa of Mysteries’’, and “The House of the Silver Wedding.”

Decaying Monochromes Blue 3, 2023, Marie Julou, Modeling paste, pigments, glitter, burnt walnut shell on canvas 92 x 73 cm

Decaying Monochromes Series

With the “Decaying Monochromes Series,” Julou is still imagining the effects of time and the elements on the surface of the canvas. Each canvas has its own life and archaeology, a history of marks challenging the idea that anything, even art, is permanent.

Inspired by the blue ocean and nouveau realist Yves Klein’s color field paintings, McCallan fully transitions this series to Majorelle Blue. Klein patented an iconic ultramarine pigment called International Klein Blue (IKB) after he found a way of applying the pigment with a medium so that the color stayed vibrant. Majorelle Blue is an equally impactful pigment that makes Julou’s series pop.

Artist Technique

Throughout Julou’s career, both her abstract work and re-creations respond to art historical moments, whether they be individual paintings or art movements like 20th-century abstract expressionism. One influence is a series of paintings by Alexis Harding. Harding, a British contemporary abstract artist, subverts the importance of the grid in modernism, once considered essential, by applying a grid of enamel gloss to a monochrome field of wet oil paint. The chemical incompatibility between them results in a collapsed image on the canvas. The grid of the top layer has, as Julou puts it, “given up or collapsed.”

She also incorporates painting methods from abstract expressionists like American artists Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler. They attacked their canvases with expressive drips and brush strokes to convey emotion. Julou sees these abstract expressionist paintings through a feminist lens, using glitter and sometimes the color pink to undermine the pomposity and purity of the monochrome.

In both “The Pompeii Series” and “Decaying Monochromes Series,” Julou sprinkles pigment on the canvas which is covered in a base layer of modeling paste, but then applies paint with a pipette, anointing the pigmented surface with droplets of what she calls the “life-saving elixir” as if to revive it. The use of glitter and natural pigments adds dimension and conveys a connection with the past.

Using Alchemy in Art

While clear on her vision, Julou welcomes the changes or “accidents” created when materials interact. This alchemy, the scientific process of transformation or creation, adds an element of surprise that she revels in. “I don't always know what I'm going to get. It's a process. But I'm just inspired by the way the materials react to each other.” One example of a happy accident includes using a pigment she got in Marrakech, Morocco that turns into crystal on the canvas, adding a whole new visual experience.

This fascination with alchemy started when she studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London and worked in the L Cornellisen & Son art shop, a famous shop on Tottenham Court Road. There she learned how to make paints from pigments of all kinds, some with names that harken back to ancient, mystical times. “We would sell materials like rabbit skin glue, dragon's blood–all these weird powders and potions.”

Sporting Club Russafa

Julou has been in Valencia, Spain since 2015 and has found a supportive network of artists. She joined the studio Sporting Club Russafa in 2023 because of the high caliber of the artists working there and its strong ties to the community as a cultural center with dance performances and regular exhibitions.

Her love of community-based, collaborative art has been with her since her days studying at the Royal Academy. One example is a project she (with her legal name— Tina McCallan) leads called Re-creations.

Re-creations, Tina McCallan (back and high right) with public art participants in Valencia, Spain

As a way to engage the public, a variety of venues including The United Nations, The National Gallery of London, and The Museum of Fine Art, Valencia, commission McCallan to recreate iconic paintings with the general public by inviting visitors to paint a square on the canvas in a collaborative performance. This is based on the idea of a 15th Century Artist studio, where assistants painted part of the picture. In this case, the project is democratic as the image is divided into a grid with squares of equal size. It turns the audience of the museum into artists. The work is rewarding and stimulating because the resulting painting is different each time.

Even though she has worked with many media in her career, she has returned primarily to painting with a consistent alchemy and aesthetic. Says Julou, “I've really come full circle.”

Biography of Marie Julou

Born in Guernsey, Channel Islands in 1964, Tina McCallan (aka Marie Julou) received an M.A. in Painting from the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1993. Her artistic journey then led her to Germany with a prestigious Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) scholarship to study under Gunter Uecker at the Art Academy Dusseldorf from 1994 to 1996.

During her time in Germany, she expanded her artistic practice to include installation, performance, and film, resulting in numerous group and solo exhibitions.

In Valencia, she is a painter and curator of several group shows including, ” Dirty Pink Valencia,” Dirty Pink Florence,” “Relics of Future’s Past,” and “Horror Vacui.” In the paintings by Marie Julou, Tina McCallan, as Marie Julou, almost becomes frozen in time. Using a black and white photo from her degree as her Avatar, she takes the idea from the Paul Auster book, 4321, which deals with possible alternate lives, imagining an artistic journey branching out in a different direction.

Some of her prizes, awards, and showings include the Fred De Souza Gallery, David Streeter Collection, Royal Academy Drawing Prize, and the 1993 First Prize painting, Oriel Mostyn Gallery.

Contact Tina McCallan (aka Marie Julou):

Email: tina.recreations@gmail.com or tinamccallan@me.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariejulou2020/

Twitter: https://x.com/TinaRecreations?s=20

Marie Julou website: https://www.mariejulou.com/

Re-creations website: https://www.tinamccallan.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/collaborativepaintingperformance/