We were lucky to catch up with Julie Celina recently and have shared our conversation below.

Julie , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I’ve always loved being creative in many different ways, and I’ve been drawing and painting ever since I was a child. When I was in high school I wanted to go to art school when I graduated, and I dreamed of having a life filled with art, museums, and interesting people. I’ve always had dreams about my future, and I have changed directions so many times when I grew up. And so it happened that just before I was to graduate high school I got a flyer with a list of university courses. The first course on the list was anthropology, I didn’t know what anthropology was at that time, I had never even heard that word before, so I looked up this strange new word, and when I read the description it was like love at first sight. In a second I abandoned my dreams of becoming an artist and applied to the university to become an anthropologist and work at an NGO. I loved learning about people, societies, and cultures around the world in anthropology, I started doing volunteer work, and had a great time studying abroad in Nepal, but I soon discovered that I was not cut out for a life in academia. I dreaded reading so many books all the time and I got anxiety at every exam. Every time I had to write about a group of people i had learned about I’d much rather paint them instead, and explore their culture through art. It finally hit me that art was the only path for me. Art is the language I a speak, it was my first love affaire, it’s my soul mate. I’m very grateful for my time at the university, I think it’s important for every artist to have interests and hobbies outside of art to give their art meaning and depth. For years I was the artist with a love for cultural diversity, and painted people from all over the world. Over the years I also developed a deep passion for the natural world, so now I create paintings and art to connect us deeper with nature both inside and outside of ourselves.

Julie , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Julie Celina, I’m an oil painter from Denmark. I paint people and plants from all over the world to connect us deeper to nature both within and outside of ourselves, as I believe that all the answers we seek are already inside of us or hidden in nature.

The thing that sets my work apart from many other artist’s is that I make an effort to co-create every collection of paintings with nature. I not only find inspiration for my art in nature, I channel the messages I get from the plant spirits in tea meditations and cacao ceremonies into my paintings. Communing with the plants is a long tradition in many cultures around the world, and it’s how people originally started working with plants and healing people with them. In the modern society we have lost this sacred connection to the natural world, and many don’t even trust the medicine we find outside in our own yards. But nature has messages for us, and we merely have to slow down and listen deeper. That is what I want to remind us of through my art.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think art is one of the most powerful form of communication in the world. Art can communicate messages across countries, cultures and languages, it can connect us with other people we don’t even know or have heard of before. To me there is nothing more rewarding than to see my art deeply touch another person, who doesn’t know anything about me, and instantly we just have this profound connection.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I always say that I strive to become the most sustainable artist in the world. I want to find all of the pigments I use in my paintings in the nature around me, I want to purely paint on FSC certified wood, and make my prints on recycled paper. I don’t want to use any harmful chemicals in my art practice, and I want to give back to the earth through amazing organisations with the money I earn on my art. This I’d all a process, but I’m dedicated to follow this new generation of eco-friendly artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.juliecelina.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/juliecelina.art
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/juliecelina.art

Image Credits
Suzanne Reitsma