Each painting in this collection captures a feeling Júlia experienced while hiking; excitement at the start, heat and doubt midway, and awe at the summit. BURNISHED EARTH lives somewhere in the middle, when enough distance has been covered to feel proud, but not satisfied as there is plenty still to go. It’s that moment of fatigue and inner strength, the exhausted inhale before the next step. 

The painting’s radial composition draws the eye inward, toward a still, almost suspended center. Around it, the soft shifts in tone feel like something just beginning to emerge. Cellular, intimate, on the verge of becoming. In the top corner, a single shadow of black rests like a seed or spark, holding weight and potential. 

That black was made from charred bones burned over a fire Júlia tended to for ten hours. It’s one of the most physically demanding pigments to make, and one she feels deeply connected to. It was applied in translucent layers so that, in the right light, even the darkest parts of the painting let a bit of light through. That transparency is intentional, it speaks to the parts of ourselves we often think are heavy or hidden, but that still hold clarity and beauty when we pause to notice it. 

Júlia’s process for this painting involved slowly building up layers of earth pigment, each one burnished by hand into the one beneath it. This kind of layering takes time and patience. It mirrors how real transformation happens, gradually, slowly, and through care. It’s not about taking sudden shifts but rather about enduring the weight and trusting that something new is taking form as we continue.

BURNISHED EARTH is a meditation on becoming. On honoring the journey, even when we’re not at the summit yet. On trusting that what’s forming, within us and around us, is still unfolding.