Juliet Karelsen
About This Exhibition
Artist Juliet Karelsen visited Iceland in the fall of 2024 was inspired by the raw beauty of the landscape – particularly the acres and acres of black lava rocks covered by green moss. She was so moved by the other worldliness that she decided to create this site-specific installation under the stairwell for the Maine Jewish Museum.
About this work, the artist explains, “There is a church in the small town of Seydifjordur that has a rainbow path that leads up to it. Rainbows are created by sunlight entering and exiting drops of water that act as prisms and separate the light into seven colors which are sometimes referred to as ROYGBIV – each letter representing a color. In religion the number seven often has numerological significance. Spiritually a rainbow represents a bridge to divine realms, the soul’s journey to awakening and holy spirits. It has spiritual meaning in many ancient cultures and religions. In Norse mythology the rainbow connects heaven to earth and in the Abrahamic religions and indigenous traditions it is a symbol of hope and healing.”
About the Artist
Juliet Karelsen was raised in New York City and has lived in Maine for many years. She is a multi-media artist and curator who received her MFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Though she was trained as a painter and painted for many years, in 2015 and 2016 she took workshops at The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts that changed the way she made art. She now considers herself a mixed media artist who sometimes makes 3D sculptural work and who is basically still painting only now she paints with wool, felt, embroidery floss, crepe paper, wires, cyanotypes, lights, mirrors etc. Her work has been exhibited in New York City, Boston, Ohio, Maine, New Hampshire, Montana and abroad in Norway (upcoming), Switzerland, Argentina and Spain. Recently she has shown in exhibitions at SPACE Gallery, The Parsonage, The Center for Maine Contemporary Art [ON]now, Bravinlee programs, SPEEDWELL projects, The Maine Jewish Museum, 3S Artspace, Zero Station, and the Cynthia Winings Gallery. In 2021 she curated an exhibition of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumni at The Maine Jewish Museum.
All images copyright of the artist, unless otherwise noted; reproduction not allowed without express permission
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