Julie Beaufils: Slow Definition

“We know that underneath the revealed image there is another that is more faithful to reality, and beneath this still another, and again another under this last. And on up to that true image of that absolute, mysterious reality that nobody will ever see.

Or perhaps up to the point at which every image, every reality, decomposes.”1

                                                                                    –Michelangelo Antonioni

In the work of Julie Beaufils, one sees the painter relentlessly pursuing the movement of line to portray what she refers to as “an emotional sense of time” rather than one that is mathematical or quantifiable. Through abstraction and color, she creates atmospheric paintings to convey ineffable sensations of duration. And yet, the work is not entirely abstract; it draws from a range of references––from a suburban tree to a plant floating at the bottom of the sea, a prefab modernist structure in Antibes, a post-industrial wasteland, a forgotten resort, even a photo she saw of campers in Chernobyl’s forest. These images, however, remain hazy and unidentifiable, like something remembered. “It’s important to remember that you can do so much with very little,” says Beaufils.2

Though she has become known for her muted, earthy palette––the result of mixing natural mineral pigments reminiscent of the tonal arrangements in Michelangelo Antonioni’s films––she is, first and foremost, a disciplined draughtsman. Before touching a paintbrush to canvas or even considering color, she sketches simple, weightless compositions and refers to her vast archive of studies. She strives to carry this economy of gesture onto canvas, translating it into color. The resulting picture is an atmosphere reduced to its essential properties.3

“Each painting is a movement,” says Beaufils. In works like L’Abysse and Cannonball, fluid spaces shift between flat tonal values intersected by lines of negative space. By elevating the canvas to play the role of a line, it becomes as integral as the pigment. In Underwater and Forest, ripples and lines expand outward creating a sense of continuous motion. In Dust, a trace of crimson cuts through an arid world, stripped to its foggy incarnadine essence.

“Why is that smoke yellow?” asks Giuliana’s (Monica Vitti’s) son toward the end of Antonioni’s Red Desert (1964). “Because it’s poisonous,” replies Giuliana. “You mean if little birdies fly there, they’ll die?” he asks. “The little birdies know by now. They don’t fly there anymore.”

The Salton Sea is one of those conundrums people are drawn to because it is both forlorn and alluring––a non-place. Once poised to become the “California Riviera” in the 1950s and ’60s, it was gradually abandoned after the lake began to shrink, farm runoff produced bright pools of color and a sulphuric odor, and plumes of factory emissions hung over the water.4

Like Antonioni’s first color feature, Red Desert, an iconic film set in an industrial wasteland and defined by its painterly minimalism, Beaufils’ Salted Sea suggests that beauty persists in entropy. Its foreground, awash in ferric, nuclear ochre, contrasts with Egyptian blue and blush jet streaks that seem to hover at the top of the painting, evoking smoggy ozone layers. In Double Sunrise, two fields of color pin a windswept strata of air. “Knowing when to stop can be the hardest part,” says Beaufils.

                                                                                                                                                                              – Lola Kramer

1 Michelangelo Antonioni, That Bowling Alley on the Tiber: Tales of a Director (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), ix.

2 The artist in conversation with the author, January 26, 2025.

3 Beaufils’ tendency towards abstract organic forms echoes Georgia O’Keefe’s dictum: “Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.”

4 Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea, directed by Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer, narrated by John Waters, KQED Truly CA, YouTube video, April 1, 2016, https://youtu.be/8TjGAWxL23c.